


A Thorny Reprieve

by fallenidol_453



Category: Dark Parables (Video Games)
Genre: Fairy Tale Elements, Gen, Lesbian Character, Not Beta Read, Novelization, Video Game Mechanics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-14
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2019-07-12 09:37:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 24,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15992546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallenidol_453/pseuds/fallenidol_453
Summary: Master Detective Moira, desperate for a reprieve after completing her third Ravenhearst assignment, temporarily transfers over to her agency's Fairy Tale division. She's not sure what to expect with her first case, after interacting with ghosts and dealing with time-traveling madmen.[Novelization of my playthrough of Curse of Briar Rose]





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own the Dark Parables series. All rights belong to Blue Tea Games and Big Fish Games. Any mistakes to canon in here is entirely my fault.
> 
> This is a repost of the story that I posted back in January, now with longer chapters so my OC can finally bitch and scream to her heart's content.
> 
> And while I contemplated tagging this story with the Mystery Case Files tag, since I DO reference one of the MCF games, I decided against it. It doesn't play that huge of a role in the current story and mostly serves as backstory.

“Miss Moira, have you noticed the vines creeping into Edinburgh?”

“Who hasn’t, Anne? I damn near gouged my eye out while jogging two days ago.” Moira fingered the large bandage on her cut forehead and winced.

The two women were crowded into Anne’s small office at the detective agency. Piles of case file folders and journals of past investigators’ cases were piled precariously on chairs and stacked haphazardly on the floor. Anne sat—well, leaned—on a corner of her desk while Moira occupied the single chair, trying to not sneeze at the dust.

“Well, _those_ are going to be the focus of your temporary assignment here. They’re originating from a castle outside of the city,” Anne replied crisply. “If they’re not contained… well, we’re going to be dealing with more than simple cuts by the next week.”

Moira stood up, turned the chair backwards, and sat down again. She leaned toward the chair back and bit her lower lip in thought. She was curious as to _what_ castle her new temporary boss was mentioning. There were several outside of Edinburgh, most if not all of them ruins. And none from what she could tell had vines just…coming out of them. But the vines were invading and slowly creeping into the city. How long before it spread _inside_ businesses and homes?

Her head hurt, just a bit. This fairy tale division was an alien world from her previous department. She investigated ghost stories and ghosts themselves, not the stories she read when she was small. But she wanted to get away for a few months and had applied for her new position when it was posted. As Anne had explained, she was merely filling in for someone on maternity leave. For however long it lasted.

“Is there anything I should be worried about aside from thorns?” she inquired. The silence had dragged on for too long, she had to say _something_. “Ghosts? Souls being manipulated to extend the lifespan of a madman? Secret labyrinths underneath the damn earth that I reach after _digging my own damn grave_ and then being forced to marry the mastermind behind it?”

Each statement was more vehement than the last. Anne gave her a pitying look.

“Ghosts, possibly. Nothing of the last two. We… mostly fix fairy tales here, not muck with timelines or the ravings of madmen. We need you to investigate the source of the vines and put an end to them if possible.” She said kindly. “Besides, I’m sure you didn’t marry that insane bastard. It wasn’t a proper wedding ceremony and he wasn’t even there in person – it was just an animatronic dummy with a telly for a head.”

Moira glared at her but held her tongue.

“Back to the vines… if this case is related to Sleeping Beauty, and I find her…”

“Yes?” Anne inquired.

“May I kiss her awake?”

Now Anne’s expression turned sardonic. Moira’s hopeful expression deflated instantly.

“While beautiful sleeping women are usually in the center of thorny vine outbreaks, it’s against agency protocol to kiss them awake. You _do not_ know if they’ll wake from their curse or if their curse will affect you as well.”

Moira slouched in her chair and pouted.

“Chin up, Miss Moira. Perhaps you’ll discover an alternate method of waking the sleeping beauty that doesn’t involve snogging her.”

Moira ignored her and nudged a nearby pile of journals with her foot. The stack wobbled dangerously but didn’t tip over.

“Anything else I need to worry about?”

“Aside from the magic in the air making you sneeze the first time around? Nothing. You’ve gotten what you wished for: a case that won’t try to kill you.”


	2. Chapter I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to follow the events that happen in-game, but given that this is a game series where you can go wherever you want and encounter story-related events in a different order than what a walkthrough tells you to do... I'm not TOO concerned.

Moira’s first reaction to the castle’s outer courtyard was to sneeze. Enormously. Magic was like pollen: it gathered thickly in the air unseen and made life hell. But the magic induced allergy-like symptoms for all of five minutes before disappearing completely. Moira _wished_ her allergy medication could do that.

The only decoration in this area was a towering statue of a young woman who could only be Sleeping Beauty. The actual castle Moira was supposed to investigate was on top of a hill, and her progress up to it was blocked by a sturdy wooden door covered in the thorny vines.

She should have brought a knife. It would make things _so_ much easier—but no. Moira wasn’t trained to take the easy way out. Based on her temporary predecessor’s notes, there _should_ be an item nearby that’ll help her. The so-called fairy tale realms were like that, allegedly: if they could make a complete castle look like ruins in modern day Edinburgh through magic, then this same realm would supply her with something to get rid of the vines. Allegedly.

Moira walked up to the statue’s base and got down on her hands and knees. If anything, the item she needed would be in the bushes around the statue.

She searched for five minutes. She spent another twenty minutes thoroughly inspecting each bush and around the statue.

Nothing.

After inspecting the wall behind the statue, Moira sat up and heaved an aggravated sigh. She pulled a twig out of her hair and threw it against the statue’s base. Maybe the predecessor’s notes were wrong. But she’d sounded so _certain_ when they had met up…

Moira’s fingers closed around what she thought was a rock. But it felt too smooth, and it had a rough U shape. She brought her hand up for closer inspection.

Even in the looming twilight, its shape was unmistakable. She held part of an ax blade.

She remembered seeing another piece on the ground, obscured by dirt. Had she pushed aside part of the ax handle, thinking it was part of the bush?

“ _God damn it._ ” Moira growled. An ax was perfect to chop down the vines. But the one available to her was broken.

 _Nothing superglue can’t fix_ , she thought to herself.

-

Another half hour passed, and Moira finally had all the pieces of the broken ax in front of her. She was rummaging through her trench coat for the bottle of superglue she smuggled in when the broken pieces began moving on their own accord.

“What the fuck?”

The pieces wobbled, inching closer to each other. Where two pieces met, they melded together into a whole new piece. Slowly, the ax blade was repaired, the handle second, and the entire weapon soon came together and magic (presumably) finished off the mending process with a soft blue glow.

Moira picked the weapon up and hefted it experimentally. The wooden handle was carelessly wrapped with a white ribbon, but it provided a decent grip. The ax blade was sharp and stout, and it had the barest amount of jeweled decoration. It felt solid and real, like an actual functioning tool she could use.

This wasn’t how she obtained the items she’d needed to progress through her Ravenhearst cases. But this realm and Blackpool were as alike as an apple and an orange. She was going to have to roll with it.

Moira stood up and brushed dirt and leaves off her pants with her free hand. She strode up to the vine covered door and splintered the vines away once—then twice—

When the last of the vines was gone, the ax broke. The ax blade fell to the ground and the handle remained in her hand for all of two seconds before both pieces … dissolved. Moira stared at the hand that had held the weapon, and then stared at the ground the pieces disappeared from. She shook imaginary dust from her hand. Dumbfounded was hardly the right word to describe her emotions at this point.

“Fucking _hell_! That could’ve been useful later!” she shouted.

Moira contemplated kicking the door in frustration. In hindsight, bad idea. She can’t finish this case—any case, really—with a broken toe or a broken foot or broken _anything_. She clenched her teeth and open the door gently, pushing inward. Before her was a set of white stone stairs going up to what looked like another courtyard, and it was flanked by the statues of a king and queen. They were meant to hold something in their outstretched arms; Moira made a mental note to keep an eye out for those items, whatever they may be.

At the base of the king’s statue was a puzzle. Moira made a beeline toward it, eager to give her mind an exercise instead of her body. Her reward for solving it… was a doorknob. A fancy one. Moira pocketed it anyway. If solving any puzzle in a strange realm yielded a reward, you kept it. It might help her later.

 _At least it wasn’t a complicated door lock_ , she thought sourly to herself.

-

The inner courtyard she found herself in boasted a large square pond, with its dark murky water and overgrown plants. Moira felt unsettled the moment she walked inside, like her every move was being scrutinized by some unseen force. She shuddered and tried to not think of the asylum. Or the hospital. She swallowed a mouthful of bile and gagged. The wall separating the courtyard from the castle entrance was slowly being consumed by vines boasting thorns at least an inch long and just as thick. The courtyard’s door was missing a handle (likely the one she carried too, she’d bet good money on it) and required a fancy sun and moon disc to unlock. 

Something glinted in the moonlight in one of the plants. Moira resisted the urge to investigate it for now. She had more territory to explore here off to the right of the pond, unimpeded by closed doors and vines. She needed to create a mental map to help her navigate what might be a sprawling castle, starting with the outside.

She walked off to the right. This bare area’s purpose was an utter mystery, least of all how a modern porch swing ended up in here. Magic at work, most likely. Or vandals looking for a cheap prank. As Moira grabbed a princess doll that sat on the swing, she spotted an alchemical sigil carved into stone and walked closer to it. She jumped back in shock when it glowed and she half-expected her local fairy tale antagonistic fairy godmother—

But the specter that appeared was anything but. It was a young woman with long blonde hair, holding a staff topped with a rose in her hand. The statue from the very first entrance was an idealized vision of her. This must be the fabled Sleeping Beauty she was looking for. Moira fell in love at once. She barely registered what this spirit was saying, only catching rhymes and an evil Godmother. Anne would be ashamed of her for not memorizing the speech, but Moira’s ability to concentrate short-circuited when confronted with beautiful women.

All too soon, the specter faded. Moira’s focus was brought back to reality by the mention of the evil Godmother. That must be who’s watching her.

She walked onward into a cemetery. The first thing she noticed was that the middles of two of the largest tombstones were missing. She hoped they weren’t too heavy to lug around; the last thing she needed to do was break her back.

Moira took another step and felt the sensation of being watched increasing a hundredfold. She froze in place. Danger hadn’t found her—yet. It was quiet around here, unsettlingly so, but that usually wasn’t a harbinger of doom.

No. Harbingers of doom were normally—

“ _Fuck OFF, YOU FILTHY ANIMAL!_ ”

A raven, red-eyed and outlined in smoke, casually perched on one of the defaced tombstones. Its single caw jolted Moira into action, and she picked up a rock and flung it at the corvid. Although her aim was true, the rock missed the bird by a mile and it flew off. Magic at work. It had to be. Had the bird said something to her? Moira must have missed in during her profanity-filled shouting.

She forced herself to calm down. Deep breaths. Count to ten Canterburys. Exhale. The raven wasn’t from Blackpool. The raven was the familiar of the evil Godmother – or the Godmother in disguise. She had killed Charles and there was no way he could do anything to her from beyond the fiery grave she gave him and his son.

A large statue that contained tiny animal heads and little… drawers caught her attention off to the right. Her shaking hands matched images to the little animal heads – more magic at work, she thought—and she rang bells that opened the drawers. One contained a key that she grabbed immediately.

Moira stood up, knees cracking, and she made herself walk out of the cemetery.

-

The long walk to her next destination – the bell tower, if the structure she saw in the first courtyard was any indication – gave her time to think. She was utterly alone. A given: she usually broke into places or trespassed upon properties to solve cases, often with no backup and relying on allies she finds during her investigations. The strange anomalies of the puzzles and the more… modern tokens she’s seen gave her pause. Moira thought it was due to magic: the first and easiest thought.

The castle is over five hundred years old at the earliest, but she’s never seen this castle advertised to tourists for tours. Even if it was a pile of ruins, someone would have given a tour to the general area of the land around it. Even to her eyes, back in Edinburgh, it looked like a pile of ruins. Yet here she was, the intact castle looming behind a wall and somewhere in there was a sleeping beauty she desperately wanted to see again.

“I think I’m in a separate realm. Or dimension.” she thought aloud.

It was the only conclusion she came up with. She had heard of other detectives regularly going to separated dimensions entirely and emerging back to Earth just fine with no indication that huge amounts of time had passed. This was no faerie realm. Anne had given zero indication that she’d be traveling to one, so Moira had no reason to fear about leaving and discovering a century had passed.

It was with that final thought on Moira’s mind when she stepped foot into the vicinity of the bell tower. Nothing of note here: just a Godmother statue (a friendly one—finally), missing something from her hand from the looks of it, and a statue base. she groaned upon seeing it, that meant for more heavy stone carved items to lug around.

 _Good god, please let the magic in the air make them feather-light!_ Moira thought savagely, sticking the key she found in the lock and turning it. The door unlocked and opened, and she ascended to the top. A functioning bell, a foggy telescope, and a beautiful view of the area was all she noticed.

She hoped that the next item she’d have to find wasn’t broken, but this… separate realm was rapidly diminishing that hope. She spotted a glint of gold up in the bell’s interior and something plastered to the wooden railing and set to work. When she had gathered all the pieces, it magically formed a moon token made of gold she needed to open the courtyard gate.

“At least I don’t have to fix it myself.” she muttered darkly. “Still. I smuggled in the damn superglue from headquarters for nothing.”

She shoved the token into a pocket and left the tower. She didn’t stop walking until she reached the second courtyard, with its murky pool and the enticing gold gleam she saw earlier. A half hour search among the overgrowth yielded half a sun emblem. Unable to find the other half, she shoved it into the pocket with the moon token and took the latter out.

Moira stood up and walked up to the gate. She inserted the moon token into the slot, pushing it in firmly until she heard it lock into place. Digging around her coat’s numerous pockets, she fished out the handle and stuck it into the two holes provided for it. A perfect fit.

A low rumble startled her, and she stepped back in time for the gate to open. It swung inward, splitting the once whole moon token in half with no real consequences to its shape.

Moira ran through it, eager as a child.


	3. Chapter II

Moira may have run through the gate with the sun and moon lock joyfully, but her joy had fizzled into exhaustion by the time she reached the top of the tall hill leading up to the castle. She staggered toward the nearest tree and began to gently stretch her sore legs. Running around the city built a great foundation for strong legs. Hiking up a steep, winding hill was something else entirely.

A scrapping noise intruded her thoughts as she worked out the last bit of muscle strain in her legs. It sounded faint, almost soft (as if stone scrapping against each other could be described as _soft_ ), but it sounded close by. Moira eased off the tree and began walking the perimeter of the entryway.

A two-minute walk around brought her face to face with the source of the sound.

“What the _shit_ …” Moira whispered.

A small statue of a winged demon was chomping at the air and moving its stubby little arms on its own accord. Moira carefully put a hand on one of its arms and felt it move beneath her. It felt too… constrained to have been created with magic, and there wasn’t a prickling sensation that told her magic was powering its use. Minding the snapping mouth, she peered into the statue’s mouth as best she could. She thought she saw a spring, but it was too dark to tell despite the lit lanterns hanging behind her.

 _I need to get on with my case_ , she thought to herself. With mild reluctance, Moira turned away and walked toward a nearby alcove.

Well… it had been an alcove, once. There were weapons in there now, carelessly stacked or leaning against the wooden seat. A tattered banner was flung sloppily over a low wall and a prickly bush. There were broken pieces of stone scattered around, and Moira set about collecting them. Even if they’re just broken pieces of a wall, she didn’t know if it could be useful to her case or not.

Something happened when she set a certain pile of rubble aside. The pile repaired itself, but it didn’t call the other broken pieces to it. Moira tried the same trick again with a second pile, but that one didn’t fix itself until she found a piece of stone behind the tattered banner. Like the first time around, the second repaired pile didn’t call the last broken pieces to it, but it didn’t merge itself with the first repaired stone rubble either. Odd.

When Moira finally laid a third pile down, it repaired itself like she thought it would. Then the other two fixed pieces began gravitating toward it, and she waited for the result. She had found a hexagonal shape, a square base, and a pair of low stone boots she’d kill to own a pair of if they were real—aw, hell. This could only mean two things: this was the base of the Godmother statue by the bell tower, and it was going to be extremely heavy.

When the blue glow faded, Moira nudged the stone statue base with her foot. No response or movement in the grass. She took a deep breath to steady herself, and bent down to pick it up—

It was as light as a feather.

“Thank you, magic!” she exclaimed. She held it aloft, triumphant. _No lugging it around!_

\--

Unfortunately, she couldn’t fit the stone base in her pocket due to its large size. Moira carried it back to the bell tower and placed it on the podium, sliding it into place by eye and praying that it wouldn’t topple over and break. The magic in this realm _might_ realign it correctly for her when she wasn’t looking, but Moira didn’t want to place all her faith into it. Magic couldn’t solve everything.

Something nagged at her as she tried to leave the bell tower area, and she finally gave in the urge to investigate after her fifth attempt at leaving. Ascending the tower steps, she stepped outside… and found pieces of stone scattered everywhere. Somehow, some of the pieces were stuck onto the bell.

“If this is the evil godmother’s doing, I’m going to eat every thorny vine coming out of this castle,” she grumbled.

A quick search and reassembly revealed the body portion of the godmother statue. Moira hefted it up gently and carefully descended the tower stairs, silently thanking all the higher powers that this too was lighter than a damn feather. When she reached the statue base, Moira was able to heave it over her head and place it on the stone shoes with very little effort. Something, likely the magic in the air, helped her align it correctly.

On her way back to the entryway with the snapping statue, she walked passed the overgrown fountain. A chance sideways glance revealed that someone… or something… had thrown pieces of wood into the water and plants. They weren’t there before.

“Evil godmother’s doing. Has to be it,” she grumbled.

Moira grabbed what she could visibly see of the wood, and roughly shoved aside the plants to find the smaller pieces. After a ten-minute search (which resulted in her left arm becoming soaked in the possibly algae-covered water), her angry searching yielded only half of a ladder. She stared at it, indignant.

“If this is that same evil witch’s idea of a joke, I’m _beating_ her to death with this!” she shouted.

Like the statue base, she couldn’t stuff the ladder half in a pocket. At this rate, it was time to invest in a large bag if she completed this case successfully. Moira carried the half ladder under an arm as she trudged back to the alcove. She noticed a suspicious patch of loose dirt near the entrance to a long, arched tunnel, but she ignored it and continued walking. She could deal with it when she had a proper spade or shovel.

The air turned colder when Moira exited the other side of the tunnel. Mist appeared from nowhere and swirled threateningly around her feet, as if attempting to shackle her where she stood. An apparition pulsed into view barely three feet away: a tall woman of indeterminate age, dressed head to toe in black. She wore a classic witch’s hat, as if her identity as the evil godmother of Sleeping Beauty’s tale wasn’t obvious enough.

Moira waited. The apparition stared at her for a minute or two, and then vanished. The mist gradually cleared away, and the air warmed back up.

“Was that supposed to scare me, Godmother?” she inquired mockingly at the spot the apparition had stood in. “Nice try.”

The only building of note here, besides a tree with a deep hollow and a well, was a stabling area for horses. It looked _far_ too small if it served a purpose to the castle inhabitants. As Moira walked closer to the doorway, she noticed it had a door lock that looked like it could rival the ones she encountered in Ravenhearst. She rolled up her sleeves as best as she could after setting the ladder half down and got to work.

The primary objective seemed to be getting a toy horse to “gallop” from one end of the lock to the other. Moira found a square tile and stuck it in the only spot that seemed to be made for it in the top right-hand corner. After fiddling with a compass arrow, sticking it to the compass in the middle of the lock, and turning _just so_ , she made the horse move partway across the lock. This action revealed another square tile that Moira stuck next to its companion. If her hunch proved correct, those tiles would form an image of a red arrow.

The buttons on the lock were harder. Minutely. If Moira didn’t grab what was in the shallow compartments or push another button fast enough, the compartments would close on her.

Finally, she managed to open the door. Compared to the locks in Ravenhearst, this lock was incredibly easy to break. And she didn’t even have to resort to physical violence and smash her way inside!

The stable was dark and smelled of musty hay, but there were no animals in the stalls she could see. Except they weren’t proper stalls: no walls and no doors separated them, yet both had empty mangers for food. Moira looked up and noticed two signs that were missing name plates.

The next oddity she encountered was the toy horse. It was jailed, for lack of a better term, in the wall to the left of the first stall. It occupied a hollow, rectangular space, and thick steel bars prevented her from reaching in and pulling the toy out with her bare hands.

These were two problems she’d have to deal with later. She walked onward and passed a large… wall-manger? Bracket? Someone had stuffed hay into it for easy access. Beyond it was a kind of blacksmith’s forge, with a large anvil in the center of the room and a huge brick fireplace adjacent to it. Shelves cluttered with horseshoes and other tools lined the walls. Moira took a step closer and noticed yet another broken item scattered around.

Whether this was the evil godmother’s fault or the magic of the realm at work, Moira had to admit it was a very effective strategy to distract her from her case… even if the broken items in question ultimately served a purpose. So far. She had never found out what to do with a package of corn chips she had been forced to buy in her Dire Grove case, but that was the only outlier. _So far._

When Moira had finally managed to gather up the broken items after an hour-long search in the semi-darkness, they mended into a shovel. It was a pretty, ornamented thing, with a too narrow wooden shaft and a wide spade that was perfect for digging. Moira held it in her hands and kissed the top of it.

“Do. Not. Break. On. Me.” she snarled at it through clenched teeth.

\--

The well outside was placed in the shade of the tree with the deep hollow in its truck. If Moira bothered to follow the dusty path northward, she’d reach a chapel she could see in the distance. But there was a knife casually discarded in the path, and she picked it up. Stout wooden handle, wickedly sharp blade. Could be perfect to hack at sharp vines. But that wasn’t her primary objective now.

The well had a brick sticking out of the stonework. Moira knelt beside it and tried wiggling it with her hand. It _felt_ loose, but it’d take more than manpower to dislodge it. She next tried the knife she found to loosen it.

Well—she _tried_. The stone refused to budge. Moira stood up with a sigh, made a mental note to find something to get rid of the brick, and stowed the knife carefully in an easily accessible pocket blade side down. It wasn’t the most secure place, but it was safer than storing it without a sheath on her belt. She didn’t want to risk a cut thigh, or worse. Before setting off, she took a deep breath of the cool night air…

…and promptly gagged at the rotten smell assailing her senses. Moira coughed and kicked out at an overturned bucket near her feet and was rewarded with the front of her boot getting covered in a repulsive smelling, unidentifiable black ooze.

“Ugh!” she exclaimed. She scrapped off what she could on the well, and then hopped on one foot to the grass, where she tried to wipe off more of the ooze. “I _just_ bought these too, damn it!”

\--

The chapel felt small in the behemoth shadow of the castle looming around it. Moira found the other half of her ladder against the castle wall; she stuck her half on top and the two halves mended seamlessly together into something strong enough to support her weight and give her direct access inside the castle proper.

There was a faint scent of roses here, and she followed the smell to an alter with a beautiful carving of a rose along the wall to the right of the ladder. There were eight circular shapes positioned all around a gilded, coffin-like panel that encased a pure white rose, and the circles were spaced in a way that implied something was to be inserted in them. One of them bore an embossed image of a gold rose. Moira leaned over and sniffed the panel experimentally. It was the source of the rosy smell, all right.

She caught a glimmer of gold out of the corner of her eye and walked to the left of the ladder. In the grass, underneath a lamp, was a black token with a gold embossed crown on it. Moira picked it up. It was the same size and weight as a hockey puck, and it looked like it belonged on the alter. She had a choice: take it with her, find other tokens to complete the set, and complete the presumed puzzle on the alter to get the rose in one fell swoop; insert the token into the alter and be forced to backtrack to it every time she found a different one, or use it as a projectile at the nearest enemy.

Maybe not the last choice. But it was tempting.

She turned her attention to the chapel itself. Two angels flanked the entrance, and once upon a time they had been holding instruments. There was another lock on the door. This time, it involved the “put these colored marbles on their corresponding colored tiles” puzzle. Moira had it solved in less than two minutes, and she pushed open the door.

The interior was as bright as day thanks to the lit candles. Stained glass windows depicting past rulers (none that Moira recognized; history wasn’t her strongest suit) and religious figures made portions of the stone walls and floor multicolored. When Moira took a step toward the pews up toward the front, she heard a crunching noise and looked down.

Vines. The thorny vines had intruded this far into the castle. She leapt back and immediately lifted her foot up. She hadn’t felt pain when she stepped on the thorns, but she couldn’t risk one being embedded into the sole of her boot. After plucking two thorns out and throwing them aside, Moira resorted to clamoring over the wooden pews to reach the open room at the end of the aisle. Something clattered to the floor when she climbed over the second to last pew, and she looked down.

A broken piece of black… handle? There was a piece of gold on an overturned, unlit candelabra nearby. Moira reached over and grabbed them, and carefully put her feet on the ground to start searching. The finished item was a scepter almost as tall as she was and surprisingly heavy for its size. She contemplated using it as a walking stick or a pretend magic staff but put those fantasies aside. It was going to be too heavy to carry around for long, and she needed to return it to the king’s statue--assuming that's where it went.

When the scepter was returned (and she was right - it belonged to the king's statue), the long hike back gave rise to a thought that had been lingering in her mind for a while. It had been barely twilight when she had first entered the castle. Some of her searches for items had taken over an hour, according to her wristwatch. When she glanced to the west… it was still twilight. The setting sun looked like it hadn’t moved from its position in the sky. It should be full nightfall by now – far past midnight, most likely. She was certainly tired enough for it.

Perhaps this was some sort of fae realm after all.

The shovel blade kept banging against her calf as she walked. When Moira reached the area with the snapping statue, she went over to the suspicious patch of dirt she noticed earlier and jammed the shovel into it. A few turns of the soil beneath revealed another alter token. This one was caked in dirt, but after a decent scrubbing against her trench coat it had an embossed image of a gold shield. Moira stuffed in with the first one she found and kept walking. She wasn't even angry when the shovel broke in her hands; she was too tired.

She was more careful when re-entering the church. Tip-toeing up the aisle in the vines, Moira was able to make it to the room at the end of the aisle. All that greeted her was a locked door and a beautiful stained-glass window depicting three people holding fancy goblets. Beneath the window was a large wooden table, with three large slots. One of them held a goblet that looked identical to the one depicted in stained glass.

The other two slots were empty.

Moira threw her hands up in frustration and stormed out of the church. The evil godmother may not be gleefully attacking her with curses, but she was having fun making Moira run around like a mouse in a maze looking for misplaced objects.

She stopped in front of the ladder and looked up. It was time to climb up the wall and see what she could find inside the castle--provided she didn't fall asleep upon scaling the wall.


	4. Chapter III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is slightly shorter than the previous ones, mostly because the actual chapter in the game is just as short. Not a whole lot of accomplish equals not a lot to write about.
> 
> I did go back and edit the previous chapters just a little bit; I forget to mention some inventory items that you pick up. It may not matter to some, but it matters to my perfectionist ass.

Bright lights stabbed Moira’s eyes when she climbed up the ladder and heaved herself over the roof ledge. Directly in front of her was another arched gate, lit by two of the brightest lanterns she’d ever seen. A small chandelier full of candles was suspended from the ceiling, adding to the brightness. The far end of the gate was halfway closed by a portcullis. She blinked, and saw not only barrels and crates scattered inside, but also a full set of armor on the right side and a mounted shield on the left. Both were polished and reflected the available light to horrendous levels.

As if on instinct now, she got down on her hands and knees and began searching for something broken. She eventually found it: a large gold key, inlaid with precious gems. Moira stuffed it in the pocket with the sun emblem half she found earlier and turned around to walk by the door to her left. She could feel a migraine coming on from lack of sleep and the bright lights.

The roof’s door required a sun emblem to unlock. She’d found a key up here, and nothing else. It was time to search somewhere else down below.

She climbed down the ladder slowly, each step down deliberate and careful. She was not going to break her neck by being both tired _and_ careless. When she walked inside the church, she walked over the thorns without a second thought and came up with the brilliant idea to try the new key on the door by the goblet table.

Tired minds always came up with great ideas, right?

Moira jammed the key at the door. Nothing happened. She poked under the doorknob repeatedly. She finally deigned to check the door, and—

No keyhole.

“ _Fuck_ ,” she muttered.

Sleep. She needed sleep.

Stumbling back into the congregation area, Moira lay down on the closest pew free of thorns and fell asleep.

\--

She woke with a bad ache in her neck and back, but the power nap had helped. Her mind felt… clearer than it had prior to starting this case. Moira sat up and began working out the aches in her body. How long had she slept? It felt like a full night, but it was still twilight outside.

She decided to ignore the anomalous weather as she pulled more thorns out of her boot soles. She’d lost enough time taking this power nap.

Leaving the church, Moira began retracing her steps. The door on the castle roof needed a full sun emblem to unlock, and she only had half of it in her possession. After checking every possible nook and cranny around the church for possible glimmers of stray gold pieces, she headed south.

She stopped just outside of the stable. The bucket she’d kicked over earlier had its rancid contents oozing out of it, where a small puddle had begun to form. She covered her mouth and nose to avoid the fumes and slipped inside the stables. Something made her… gravitate toward the smith’s area once again, and Moira knew she couldn’t shake the feeling until she found _something_.

That something turned out to be a wooden goblet. Made of solid dark wood and inlaid with silver on the inside, it was too large to be used with one hand comfortably, and it likely required two hands to use when it filled with drink. A large band of gold decorated the rim, with a large sapphire rested dead center with two sets of small rubies flanking it on either side. It looked solid enough to knock someone out if it was thrown at them. She stuffed it in a large pocket at the end of her coat, but know she’d regret it once it started banging against her ankle.

Moira left the stable, holding up the coat end containing the goblet to avoid a bruised ankle for now, and promptly stopped. Not even dropping the coat and feeling a shin-bruising knock from the cup was enough to shake her out of what she was seeing.

On the path leading to the church, a pale shadow walked across the dusty path. It was too far away to identify individual details, but Moira know it had to be Briar Rose. Was she trying to lead her somewhere? Show her the way to another location?

The pain radiating from her shin made her lose focus on the specter for a second. She lifted her leg and rubbed it absently as the specter appeared again. It went in the same direction as before and paid her no attention.

 _Maybe it’s not Briar Rose…_ she thought.

The specter appeared for a third time. Moira raised her arm high and waved it around.

The white shadow walked across the dusty path and made her no mind.

Moira turned around and walked toward the main gate. The evil godmother was probably tricking her with an illusion. As one does.

As she came up to the gate with its weapons-filled alcove, glimmers of scattered gold pieces were strewn around the entrance and bushes. As Moira began picking up the pieces, another thought prodded at her mind.

Perhaps it _wasn’t_ the evil godmother who was making her find these broken items. After all, these items—so far—had been helping her investigation, not hindering it. If anything, the door puzzles hindered her… but not by much. They were too easy to solve.

So: either some unknown and unseen force in this realm was at play, or Briar Rose was helping her. Somehow. The thought of that made her smile.

A phantom tug at one of her pockets made Moira lose track of thought. She had found the other half of the sun emblem she was looking for, at long last. She felt along her long coat and found the pocket holding the emblem half. She opened it and reunited the two halves. Well—mostly. Given that it was a key to unlock a door, the top half could easily disengage from the bottom if she bothered to pull hard enough.

\--

The walk and climb back to the castle roof couldn’t take any longer, but Moira was forced to move at a walk. Every time she tried to run, the wooden goblet hit her shin. The third time this happened, she wasn’t going to be surprised to find a large bruise. Against her hoarding judgement, she put the goblet back in the church where it belonged and finally climbed the ladder.

She pushed the sun emblem into the lock until she couldn’t feel it go in anymore. There was a low rumble, and she stepped back as the door swung inward.

A dimly lit upper floor hallway greeted her. There were three doors along the left wall, presumably leading to different towers or other locations in the castle. The first door was blocked off with a thick patch of briars that were entwined with what looked like ivy. The second door was blocked by an antique suit of armor holding a halberd.

Nothing Moira did made it move. Trying to force her way inside was bound to earn her a broken hand or arm. Or worse, had the knight been animated with magic. Which was an unlikely possibility (she had rapped her fist against the chest plate and gently kicked its shin like a toddler), but it was one she had to keep in mind… just in case.

The final door opened at her touch.

Bathed in moonlight, with a large portrait of a man wearing Tudor-style armor overlooking a table laden with empty dishes, was a lavish dining room.

Moira had no choice but to go forward.


	5. Chapter IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A twofer update, chapter 6 will be posted shortly. These two were originally one chapter, until I realized I fucked up during gameplay and had to consult a walkthrough to figure out where one chapter ended and one chapter began. OOPSIE.
> 
> To everyone leaving kudos and reading: thank you! It means a lot.

For a castle she considered long abandoned, there was hardly any dust on the furniture and dishes. Moira walked over to an armoire position to the right of a large stained-glass window, intending to wipe her finger on it to see if there really _was_ dust… and found another disc for the rose alter. She placed it in the pocket with the other discs and moved to the dining table.

A cross-shaped table runner, fine china (she wasn’t even questioning how those got in there), candlesticks with half-melted candles… and the torn remains of a book.

On closer inspection, the pages hadn’t been ripped out, which was a blessing in disguise. No, someone had ripped the bound pages right off the spine of the leather-bound book and tossed the pieces everywhere on the table.

When Moira finished reassembling the book, she held a thick volume titled _The Sorcery Book on Immortality_. The leather cover was stamped with a gold flower on the front, and half of a flower stem was stamped on the spine in gold. The title alone was enough to make her skin crawl; it reminded her too much of Charles Dalimar’s library of dark sorceries as described in Emma Ravenhearst’s diary. Who knows who this book belonged to – the evil godmother?

Moira set the book down on a window seat. Key to something or not (the half flower stem was a dead giveaway), she was not going to attract the attention of the evil godmother by carrying around something that _might_ belong to her.

She walked away from the book and up to a closed door off to the right. A test of the doorknob confirmed that it was locked. Moira bent down to inspect the keyhole. A tiny white crown was etched beneath it, and didn’t she have…? Ah, yes. There was a use for that fancy crown key she found on the roof alcove earlier.

Beyond the door was the throne room.

The first thing to catch her eye was the massive pile of rubble to the right of the raised dais that held the throne. Wooden timbers and broken stone obscured whatever was behind it from view. Moira carefully walked over to it and looked up. There was no gaping hole in the ceiling, not even a crack on the stone. Closer inspection of the rubble – as close as she dared without gouging an eye out – showed a wooden door being blocked off.

She huffed in annoyance and walked away. She’ll find access to the rest of the castle – or make her own entrance.

The left wall of the throne room had two royal portraits hanging on it, and a large bookcase dominated the area to the right of the second portrait. The portraits were in surprisingly good condition and depicted a man and a woman – Briar Rose’s parents? Likely… but at the same time, they were not wearing any royal regalia. Besides, Briar Rose was blonde, and these two subjects had dark brown hair.

She inspected the bookcase next. Two books were missing from the middle shelf, and one of them was more than likely the book she left behind in the dining room. This bookcase was probably a door to a secret room that would only open when the two books were put back… or not. It could just be a regular bookcase. Who knows – she’s encountered both varieties in either a past case or when reading another detective’s case journal.

Moira turned to her right and saw a door that was to the left of the dais. She could pass through this one, thankfully… provided she solved another puzzle.

“Damn it,” she said.

The door puzzle had a purpose – and she couldn’t find one yet. There was a picture of two cats on top. Eight curtained below it hid a picture of a cat behind them. Moira moved each one aside, trying to figure out the pattern.

She was ready to give up and smash the damn thing when she pushed aside a curtain and found that the cat behind it was identical to the curtain she already had open. Somewhere, a tiny bell sounded, and the open curtains closed on her. The cat picture changed to a knight with outstretched arms, two question marks next to their hands.

She had to find the knight’s weapons behind the curtains. Of course.

-

When Moira finally unlocked the door and shoved it open, she heaved a huge sigh of relief. The evil godmother had clearly stepped up her game with that lock; she didn’t want anyone finding out what lay behind the door. Moira could see why, now. The room took her breath away with how beautiful it was.

Sadly, it wasn’t the treasure vault.

Seven tall stained-glass windows dominated the back wall of the room, allowing moonlight to pour in and illuminate the five fairy godmother statues standing on a large, raised dais in front of the windows. Four standing torches were placed on the first and last steps of the dais, providing a warm glow to counter the moonlight.

Plants were growing along the sides of the walls, while a few patches of grass pushed through the cracked and broken stones of the dais. Dried rose petals were scattered at the feet of the godmother standing front and center, and a small patch of ivy leaves grew at the feet of the godmother statue in the back on the right.

Was this some sort of shrine? A chapel? It felt holy enough for one, though the godmother statues felt… _alive_. It was as if they were staring at her, and their lifelike faces were not helping. Moira looked away from them and focused her attention on the pedestal in the center of the room. She approached it and read the inscription carved onto it.

_By our collective power, we will contain the curse of Briar Rose for the next 1000 years._

…Curse?

Moira looked at the godmother statues. Then at the pedestal. Back to the godmother statues. Was Briar Rose the cause of these vines? Perhaps. Had they sprouted up when she pricked her finger? Again, perhaps. Just what were these godmothers trying to contain or keep at bay? Moira didn’t want to know.

This was almost too much for her head to bear now.

Dimly, she became aware that there was a book laying against the bottom step. She walked over and picked it up. Same size and shape as the one she set down in the dining room. The spine had the front half of a rose on it. The book was titled _The Sorcery Book on Teleportation_.

Moira… did not want to think about just what kind of magic was practiced here in the kingdom. She left the godmother shrine and put the book on the bookshelf. Nothing happened. She got the other book from the dining room and put it back on the shelf.

The two spines formed a complete rose flower – and revealed a secret tower staircase.

Moira climbed the stairs slowly, afraid of what might lay up there. She was glad she took caution when stepping up the last stair. A desolate hallway awaited her – and every inch of it was covered in thorny vines.

She took a deep breath and inched forward. She stepped on vines that had the smallest thorns and made her way to the room at the end of the hallway. The vines grew thickest here, boosting thorns an inch long, and they spread across the door-less entrance. All she could see was a room devoid of furniture except for a large spinning wheel. Vines were growing in there too – except they grew outward, toward the hallway.

It looked like her hunch was right. All the stories said Briar Rose fell into a deep sleep when she pricked her finger on the spindle – they just didn’t mention the thorns that sprouted up at the same time. Latent powers coming to the surface, perhaps?

She wanted to go further, but the curtain of vines was too much. The small knife she found was next to useless here – she’d need a machete for this kind of job, and she didn’t have one.

Moira stepped back and looked at the little lamp providing this hallway with light. Down to the right, against the wall and covered in vines was a large golden shield. A huge copper cross shaped design covered the front. It looked like a decoration.

It looked like it could adorn that one suit of armor outside the dining room.

Well, only one way to find out.


	6. Chapter V

Several cut fingers and a broken knife later, Moira heaved the shield onto the suit of armor and prayed it wouldn’t fall over. Again. When a sliding mechanism moved the armor aside, she heaved a sigh of relief. The shield had caused a massive racket earlier when it dislodged from the wall she had freed it from and slammed to the floor.

And it had pulled the same stunt again in the dining room when she was trying to put back together a sign for the stable. At least it hadn’t fallen on her foot in either instance.

The room behind the suit of armor looked more like a foyer from a wealthy family’s house. A staircase led to a music room on the second floor. A massive mural dominated the wall on the right. It depicted two soldiers wielding a sword and an axe – and Moira _knew_ the mural was concealing a secret passage, because the sword and axe were missing.

She went back upstairs. There was a stage on the room’s left side that she had missed the first time around. An inscription on the top read _The Princess, The Prince, and his Horse_. Moira looked down at the princess doll sticking forlornly out of her pocket. She was going to collect the other two dolls before reassembling them on the stage. It didn’t feel right otherwise.

A glint of silver caught her eye by the instruments. She expected a silver-cased item… and almost impaled her hand on a broken knife blade instead.

Her next item, it seems.

The finished sword resembled a cheap one she might see at a medieval festival, only with real gems in the pommel. It was also a perfect fit for the mural downstairs. After putting the sword back, Moira inspected the room leading out of the music room. It was a small library, with a cozy reading area and two doors on the far end. Each required a token to unlock – a bird token and a potion bottle token.

Moira already dreaded finding out what lay beyond the potions room. She hoped it wasn’t the evil godmother’s… abode. Lair. Living quarters. She sat down on the nearest chair and peeled her ruined leather gloves off her fingers, and then took out a small first-aid kit from one of her pockets. She began cleaning and bandaging her cut fingers.

She didn’t… see, much less feel, anything to indicate that there was something to be found in this area. She wasn’t even sure when she started becoming _aware_ of this phenomenon, unless it was a gradual feeling she was just now noticing due to her extended stay in this realm. Her middle finger, the one with the deepest cut, stung when she applied antiseptic to it and put a band-aid on. She should start wandering around and—see?—if this realm could give her some sort of “Here! Look here!” feeling, now that she was more aware of the sensation.

Moira crumpled up the band-aid wrappers into the smallest possible balls and put them back with the band-aids she had on stock and put the antiseptic back into the first-aid kit as well. She may be trespassing here, but there was no way in hell she was going to be a bad guest and do something as baseless as _littering_.

After putting the first-aid kit away and tucking her ruined gloves in a pants pocket, she walked back into the music room. Nothing. No weird tug behind her bellybutton, no sense of urgency. The hallway, the dining room, and the throne room gave her the same vibe: nothing to be searched or looked for. When she stepped onto the roof, though, she felt it. Something nudged her toward the alcove that gave her a migraine a few hours ago or last night. Once there, she couldn’t leave.

Well – she _could_ , but she’d have to go back eventually.

Moira rummaged through the crates and scattered weaponry until she held a wooden owl body in her hands. It felt solid, but the middle of the body was hollow, and it felt too light to do any real damage if she had to hurl it at someone. It was also too big to fit inside a pocket.

So where did it _go_?

Moira climbed down the ladder, and there was that feeling again, this time toward the church. She made herself turn away from it and walked down toward the stable. Walking inside, she pulled the sign from the dining room out and held it up against the empty sign holder next to the toy horse’s “jail”. A perfect fit – but it didn’t feel right to her to put it back yet.

She walked out of the stable. The pull was stronger this time around, and it physically hurt to resist it, but she wrested her body toward the tree. She knew it had a hollow in the middle, but on closer inspection there was the bottom of the owl inside. Moira stuck the owl body on top of it and finally began walking toward the church. The pull felt physical, almost, but its “grip” lessoned the closer she got to the church entrance and it disappeared upon entry.

The church pews she found the king’s scepter in was now riddled with glass fragments and broken silver pieces. Her… final goblet? Hopefully. Picking the pieces up carefully, Moira set them down on a pew for safekeeping to avoid cutting her fingers any further. Occasionally, she’d look up at the pew and discover the pieces already mended together. It looked like she was correct about this item being a goblet – and a _gorgeous_ one at that too.

But stealing was wrong, and she needed it to unlock that door in the next room.

-

Unfortunately, putting the goblets back was only step one. Something unlocked, all right: but it wasn’t the door. A panel on the wall revealed yet another marble puzzle.

“You’re _shitting_ me, right? Right, evil godmother?”

Two minutes later, Moira went downstairs into what looked like an underground pantry or storage area. It smelled musty and damp, but it was brightly lit and something sparkled on the shelves… Moira felt that tug and began looking around on the shelves.

What she got was – the axe for the mural. Or was it a halberd? Either way, it was a bedazzled, spindly thing; too weak for combat and too large to carry around comfortably. She set it against the wooden counter for a moment.

Before leaving the room, because the magic pull was finally gone, Moira decided to inspect the shelves a little more closely. On second thought, this wasn’t a pantry. This was a storage area for potion ingredients. She leaned in closer to a large glass jar, trying to determine if the contents were eyeballs or beans, when something in the reflection caught her eye.

Moira slowly turned to the right.

Time seemed to slow down when she looked at the door, and then _really_ looked at it.

At that moment, she wasn’t sure who screamed louder: herself or the monstrous spider guarding the large wooden door.

Spiders did not scare her on principal. But when they were as large as the door they were guarding…

Moira grabbed the halberd and bolted out of the room.


	7. Chapter VI

Moira raced out of the church basement and through the castle grounds until her feet tripped her up. The halberd went flying as she fell face-first into her destination: the algae-coated, overgrown fountain of the outer courtyard. She spat out a mouthful of water and coughed. Her arm hurt, and it felt like her whole head and neck were soaked, but she had to _listen_.

She only heard the whispering of the wind. She wiped her face absently on her coat sleeve and listened again.

Nothing.

Perhaps the spider wasn’t screaming anymore. Her heart pounded. Maybe it was _right behind her_.

Moira looked out of the corner of her eye. Shadows of the courtyard and the vines. She craned her neck to see further.

There was no sign of the spider. Either she outran it or it couldn’t leave its web. She was going to err to the side of caution and assume it could leave its web, but not go very far.

She heaved herself to her feet and began inspecting her coat’s pockets. Nothing in them looked damaged or broken despite the hard fall she took. She was going to have a spectacular bruise on her ribs from where the rose discs had slammed into them though. The area felt tender to the touch, and she cringed at the pain radiating from it when she gave an experimental poke.

It took her a few minutes to find the halberd. It was laying between the exit of the courtyard and the entrance to the yard with the alchemy sigil. Amazingly, it was still intact. Not even the tiny axe head had been marred or broken off on the impact. She picked it back up and stalked back toward the castle.

As Moira walked, she considered that her second initial thought might be correct. There was no visible damage to the castle as she neared the church and began climbing back up the ladder. A spider that large would have destroyed the church and its entrance if it had left its web and gone on a rampage to find her. She was going to need something to defeat it, or at least drive it away.

But she had better things to worry about. Like how she was going to get the halberd over the roof. It was awkward and dangerous climbing up a ladder while holding something in one hand. She considered her options. She was roughly halfway up, and she was in danger of dislocating her jaw if she made one false move.

Carefully, she climbed another rung and clung to the ladder for dear life. She inched the arm clutching the halberd up. Providing her elbow and shoulder didn’t give out, she’d be fine.

She hoped.

Up. The halberd’s axe blade scratched at the stone. Up a little more. Light glinted off the axe blade. Moira’s body shook with exertion. She pushed up a few inches and craned her neck up. If she timed this right, she could climb another rung and heave the weapon onto the roof.

\--

Well—that _was_ the plan.

“I’m _definitely_ treating myself to a massage when I get home.” Moira whined.

It took her three separate tries to get the halberd up onto the roof. It rested against the castle tower wall like the shiny, sparkly bastard it was, while she lay on the ground and contemplated death while her sore muscles screamed in pain.

Eventually, Moira sat up and stretched gently, mindful of the tender area on her ribs. It was time to get moving, and the sooner she put the halberd back, the better. She hoped it was the last large item she’d had to haul around, let alone heave up the castle roof. If there was a way to magically teleport herself from inside the castle to the outside of her, she was going to find it.

She grabbed the halberd and walked into the room past the suit of armor. She stuck the weapon into its proper slot into the painting and almost jumped for joy when it parted. The giant mural was, in fact, hiding a secret room. Even better: a hallway to more rooms. And as soon as the way was clear, Moira felt that _tug_. It led her down the hallway and stopped at what was either an armory or yet another weapons cache. Something shiny and blue caught her eye, and she was soon lost to the world.

The item that was put back together was the potion token she needed for the library upstairs. Moira repressed a shudder looking at it. The token was pretty to look at – it was a shiny copper disc the same size as the rose discs, with a hint of silver molding itself into the shape of a potion bottle in the center. A large sapphire had been cut to fit in the molding perfectly.

Moira shoved it into a free pocket and looked around. The armory was dimly lit, and at least three suits of armor standing at attention nearby leered out of the darkness at her. A huge crate of unused weapons was positioned nearby, and Moira only knew about it because she banged her knee on a corner of it. There was also an exit leading north, next to the third suit of armor.

She walked out of the room and came to a stop. The room in front of her was… well, a dungeon. Every castle had them. But this one? The three doors she could see were all shut tightly and could only be opened with a wall panel. A wall panel whose key she didn’t have—yet.

She dreaded finding out what lay beyond the cell doors. She didn’t smell decay and death, but honestly one could never know. And it was too dark to see into the cells themselves. Somethings were better left to the imagination, or until she found the key to the panel.

Moira turned on her heel and left the armory as fast as she could. Outside the mural, she felt compelled to go back upstairs to the music room. Among the instruments this time were scattered pieces of wood, and a few gems. Reassembling it gave her a wooden owl head, for the incomplete owl statue in the tree hollow. It was too large to pocket, but at least its face was adorably carved.

Well – except for the strange slot beneath its beak. Moira dreaded finding out what she’d need next for the owl. A punch card?

She wanted to go back to the tree, but whatever wanted her to fix the owl head wasn’t done with her yet. Moira walked into the library, and the sensation ebbed, but it lingered. In a sense. It wasn’t strong enough to make her do anything, or force her to walk somewhere, but it was there.

Moira knew what it wanted her to do: use the potion token.

But this was a library. Perhaps there was information on the curse the godmothers mentioned that could either debunk or supplement her earlier theories.

She grabbed a nearby ladder and began climbing. Despite her misgivings, the shelves closest to the potion bottle door might help…

-

Unfortunately, her reading quest failed.

Half of the books refused to open. Others wouldn’t come off the shelf at all. What books Moira was able to pry off the shelves and open were written in a script she didn’t recognize, despite the English words printed on the spine. Perhaps this realm didn’t want her to know its secrets.

Moira sighed and pushed the potion bottle token into the appropriate door. Better late than never, she might as well get this ordeal over with. The door swung inward with a loud squeal of its hinges, and she braced herself.

Her fears were completely unfounded the moment she crossed the threshold.

The spacious workroom was bathed in moonlight, the pattern from a stained-glass window casting a geometric pattern on the stone floor. There was no dark magic to be felt at all. A small alcove carved into the northern wall contained a worktable made for brewing potions. Carved deeply into the stone floor in front of the worktable was the same alchemical symbol the yard with the porch swing had. Strange.

A desk in front of the window had a half-finished grimoire perched on a stand, and a large gold key lay next to it. Moira grabbed it out of instinct, and then went to investigate the worktable. It’s not like she had much of a choice – the sensation of “Find me!” was that strong.

The worktable was a mess. A small shelf perched on the wall was devoted to potion ingredients in various sizes of bottles. A large beaker in front of it, perched over a burner, contained a strange clear pink liquid. But _something_ was here, and she had to find it. Moira covered her mouth and nose to avoid smelling the beaker contents and got to work.

After a long search, the item she found turned out to be what looked like a large… energy core. Fluorescent green liquid sloshed and oozed inside. On the front of the core was a third alchemical sigil identical to the one she’d seen twice over. Where would she put this thing? Was there a spot for it in this room? And just how was she supposed to activate the sigil beneath her feet, if it could be activated at all?

Moira hefted the core in her arms and poked around the room a little more. Areas she deemed most likely to place it were quickly debunked. The core’s awkward cylinder shape made it difficult to perch against a wall, and it was impossible to put it into a hollow unless the book was tremendously thick.

She next found a dusty slot tucked away out of sight between the stained-glass window and a trio of wooden shelves that held dusty jars of potion ingredients. Moira reached out and traced the indent with a non-bandaged finger. It _felt_ like a good fit.

Maneuvering between haphazardly stacked empty wooden crates and the desk, Moira pushed the energy core inside the slot. It _lit_ up unexpectedly, hurting her eyes. She looked over at the sigil and was startled to see that it too was glowing as well. Did it really lead to the yard with the swing?

Only one way to find out.

Moira pried a bit of loose stone free from the wall and tossed it onto the sigil. It disappeared with a bright flash of green light.

What would happen if _she_ went on it?

Moira inched forward until she was less than a pinkie toe away from the sigil. The bright light stabbed at her eyeballs, and she looked away. Could she really do this? The stone had disappeared. But that was an inanimate object. What would happen to her, a living breathing human?

She took a deep breath.

“I’m not going to find out anything if I don’t do something,” she said. “Besides, this could be the teleportation transportation I daydreamed about earlier.”

She opened the pocket with the rose discs and distributed them evenly into their own pocket. She also removed the princess doll and placed it into the pocket the discs were previously in. If she was going to jump, she didn’t want to damage her sore spot further. Broken ribs were nothing to sneeze at.

She looked at the sigil again. Shook her body to loosen it up. Hoped the princess doll was soft enough to cushion the blow, should she fall.

“Beam me up, Scotty?” Moira whispered aloud.

She jumped onto the sigil.

She screamed as the bright green light engulfed her vision. She closed her eyes in agony and felt tears forming. Her body felt like it was being squeezed by an immense pressure from every angle. She fought to take another breath – to yell, to move her body…

Her world went black in that same instant.


	8. Chapter VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short(er) chapter this time, but that's honestly how the game presented itself. I tried to draw it out, but there's only so much I can do with the content presented to me.

Moira thought she was floating. Her body felt weightless, buoyed by magic or the cosmos. She couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t _move_ —she simply existed.

Then her body slammed onto cold stone and moss. Cool night air brushed against her face and ruffled her short hair. Pain woke her up and she gasped from the sudden sharpness of it. The sore spot on her ribs ached, again, but the princess doll had cushioned the blow somewhat. She was grateful she had had the foresight to spread the rose discs into different pockets. Hurting her sore spot even more would have severely hampered her investigation.

She picked her head up and looked around. She _was_ back in the yard with the swing. It looks like she did find her teleportation device after all. Though, maybe next time she wouldn’t jump onto the sigil. She’d hate to end up face-first onto that worktable with the unfinished potion. Who _knows_ what it could do to her.

Rolling onto her back, Moira sat up gingerly and scooted over to the swing. She grabbed one of its beams and used it to bring herself to her feet. Her legs felt like jelly as she stood up, and she waited a few minutes for the feeling to subside before taking a step. When she was positive she wouldn’t fall on her face, she walked back to the fountain she’d fallen in earlier.

She sensed another item was scattered in the water and began searching.

-

A piece of cloth and glass cleaner, of all things. Moira recalled the telescope at the top of the bell tower. The lens _had_ been filthy but cleaning it hadn’t been very high on her priority list at the time. If she found something to clean it with along the course of her investigation, then she found something to clean it with. But still…

“Briar Rose… if you’re helping me somehow…” Moira whispered. She tucked the cleaner and cloth away. “Thank you.”

The area clearly wasn’t finished with her, because right after she whispered her thanks, she felt compelled to go south. She followed it back to Briar Rose’s statue – scattered pieces of metal, a blue gem. Reassembly gave her an incomplete brass key with an owl spreading its wings in flight as a topper. Moira pocketed it regardless, placing it with the gold key she found earlier, and then began trekking north.

That nagging feeling that she should stop and investigate another area resurfaced at the mechanical biting statue, but Moira ignored it and pressed on. She had to get to the tree hollow. She had all the components to complete the owl, maybe the key she found included, and she was going to finish it, damn it.

Reaching the hollow at last, Moira slammed the owl’s head down with more force than she intended. As she straightened the head, she noticed a detail she had overlooked the first time around: a rounded key hole just above the eyes.

She dug around in her pockets until she found the owl key. The round shapes on both of them looked like an identical fit, but she would never know until she at least tried.

Moira stuck the key into the keyhole and turned it around. There was a scrapping noise, and something golden popped out of the slot that was beneath the owl’s beak. She gingerly pulled it out and held it up to the light of the lantern by the stables.

An owl token made of gold, stamped with the image of an owl’s head. Maybe this was the other token she was needing in the library, maybe not. She slid the token into a pocket and backtracked to the biting statue. She couldn’t see anything among the scattered weapons at first, but there were strange pieces of wood plastered to the inner walls of the alcove. Moira yanked those off and began looking for more.

Ten minutes later, she held a pickaxe with a ribbon decoration in her hands. It was a charming callback to the axe she had used in the beginning of this case. One or three whacks and this thing would break in two. She’d better not get too attached, because this clearly wasn’t going to help her against the giant spider.

At least the ribbon was tied to the bottom of the handle this time. If nothing else, she’d have a great grip when demolishing some stone.

She turned around and headed back south toward the bell tower. This was the perfect opportunity to go and clean that telescope lens, and she wasn’t going to waste it. Walking back into the first courtyard, Moira looked up into the sky by chance and saw movement.

Movement—but not toward her. There were birds in the sky, flying toward the castle. Another bird was departing the castle, flying north.

The evil godmother corresponding with lackeys or allies? Or birds just roosting up at the castle and going about their general business?

Moira quickened her pace to get to the bell tower.


	9. Chapter VIII

Moira climbed to the top of the bell tower and crouched down next to the telescope. She took out the rag and glass cleaner and proceeded to wipe down every available inch of the telescope’s surface that she could reach. The rag soon became blackened from years of accumulated dust and grime, but she wasn’t satisfied until the telescope gleamed in the moonlight. She even took care of the cobwebs, making sure she didn’t come into direct contact with then. An allergic reaction was the last thing she needed right now.

Finally, she peered through the telescope.

A row of birds perched on a wall. Moira had a feeling she shouldn’t be able to see them _this_ clearly, but she elected to ignore that. There were four avians total: a great horned owl, a tiny hummingbird, a… macaw, all right; and a common pigeon. Moira tried to see if they moved, but they didn’t move an inch aside from a breeze ruffling some of the owl’s feathers.

Hmm. Either they were real but enchanted, or the most realistic statues she’d ever seen.

Moira stepped away and left the bell tower. She’d get more answers after using the bird token.

On her way back to the castle roof, she stopped at the well with the loose brick. She swung the pickaxe at it, knocking half of it off cleanly. The pickaxe broke like she knew it would, and she knelt to grab the rest of the brick. Pulling with all her might, the other brick half was wrenched out with enough force to knock Moira backwards. Getting to her feet, Moira clutched the brick in one hand and peered inside the hollow left behind.

The lamp light from above showed something golden. Moira dug it out and looked at it. Another rose disc, with a glass slipper embossed on it. Grand. How many more was she going to need for the altar? Her modified coat with its many pockets couldn’t hold _everything_.

Moira pocketed both the disc and brick and moved on. Up the ladder and back into the castle she went. Her first stop was the prison, to try the gold key she found… but she couldn’t move past the suits of armor. It was that “Find me!” sensation again, just manifesting in a different manner. When she was finished searching upon the weapons crates and suits of armor a few minutes later, she held up a stone flute.

“Damn it, Briar Rose, I think I know you’re trying to help me, but putting your castle back together isn’t going to solve your curse!”

-

 _Love of God, this better work._ Moira thought.

She stuck the gold key into the lock in the wall and turned it.

All three prison doors opened at the same time. Moira jumped at the sound and knocked a low stool backwards. She grabbed at the wooden desk beneath the keyed wall panel for support. Once her heart stopped pounding and trying to escape her rib cage, she cautiously peeked inside the first cell.

A spindle. With a heavy ball and chain attached to the wood. Moira burst into a fit of giggles.

“Wh—what’s it gon—gonna DO?!” she wheezed. “Prick someone’s—oh.”

She stopped laughing. She was here _because_ a pretty princess had pricked her finger on a spindle. She quickly moved on to the next cell.

It was empty, aside from a large shadow. Moira moved aside to let more light in and promptly shrieked at her discovery: someone hanging from a noose. She tried to grab the lamp from its wall socket and failed. It wouldn’t budge. She moved back farther.

That _someone_ turned out to be _something_. A sack stuffed with unknown material into a vague human shape, with red X’s going down its torso, and large white… shapes for eyes. Moira approached it slowly and gave it an experimental poke. It swayed. The rope itself looked sturdy enough, and it wasn't every day you came across free rope for the taking. She grabbed the stuffed sack and tugged. Whatever held it to the ceiling gave away easily, and she soon had a coil of decent rope in her hands. She didn’t know what she’d use it for _yet_ , but she was glad to have it.

Finally, the third cell. Moira saw a lit lamp and smelled a faint trace of magic. She looked down and saw another rose disc, embossed with the image of a mirror. She bent down to pick it up and finally noticed a pile of bones scattered inside a brown… blanket or outfit.

“Bloody hell!” she shouted. She grabbed the disc and ran out of there like her life depended upon it. She hurried upstairs and sagged to the ground just inside the doorway.

Either that had been an actual prisoner who was forgotten about as time went on, or the evil godmother was pulling a cruel prank on her. Moira fervently hoped it was the latter. Her one and only encounter with a skeletonized corpse was Emma Ravenhearst, and she still had nightmares about it.

Eventually, she stood up and crossed the music room to sit on the padded piano stool. There she noticed what looked like broken sticks scattered around. She picked one up, then another, until she held an ornately carved wand with a curled topper, and a white cloth tied around the bottom of the shaft for a more solid grip.

Hadn’t she put a statue together at some point earlier? She stared at the wand. Where…?

_Oh._

Moira slapped herself in the forehead. _The bell tower_!

It seemed so far though. She could use the teleportation sigil, but she wasn’t sure if she wanted a repeat experience of what happened earlier…

 _I can think about this while exploring whatever the fuck lays behind that owl door._ she thought.

-

The aviary was… well, full of birds. It looked like a castle tower and part of its battlements had been converted for the birds’ use. Moira stepped over two birds pecking at the ground to reach a panel on the back wall. There were eight images of birds on the panel. Moira poked an owl image experimentally, and heard a compartment open somewhere. She thought about what she saw through the telescope. Owl… macaw…

The panel shut abruptly when she selected the four birds, barely missing her fingers. Then it opened back up, showing the four images she’d selected. Did she had to put them in order? The nerve of it all. Moira swapped the two middle pictures. The panel then lifted upwards.

She expected a large item hidden behind the panel, but this was a surprise. Perched on its own stand was a goddamn machete. Moira grabbed it with glee. She was getting too used to this realm to question why someone had a machete hidden in an aviary, and she didn’t care. It was going to be perfect against the briars on the door to the left of here, and in the secret passage covered in briars.

She couldn’t _wait_ to use it.

Moira went back into the dining room. Tried to leave. Couldn’t.

“Fuck!”

She held a flute, a machete, a large stone wand, and a coil of rope in one hand, and they were all held in a very poor grip. Whatever was on the table had better be small enough for a pocket.

Unfortunately, it turned out to be a goddamn _tombstone_. Cracked with age, with moss on one side, and a fancy king’s crown carved at the top and painted with gold. There was no way in hell Moira was going to carry this, plus her other burdens, all the way to the bell tower. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

“The teleporter it is,” she said to herself.

She gingerly picked up the tombstone with her free hand (while blessing the fact that it was light as a feather), and with some maneuvering, tucked it under her right arm. She could do this.  She could make it to the alchemist’s room. It would just require… maneuvering.

-

The stairs were a challenge, but she managed. Barely. Moira waddled into the alchemist’s room and stopped to take a breath. She could… feel that she wouldn’t be able to leave until she found an item, most likely on that work station in the alcove.

But the teleportation sigil was _right there_. Would she be able to leave the room if she stepped on it?

Moira didn’t jump on it. Not this time. She stepped onto it and closed her eyes. There was that pressure enveloping her, that floating feeling… but no crashing to the ground. She opened her eyes and found herself still standing.

_Thank God!_

She took a step. No jelly legs either. She walked faster toward the bell tower, eager to be rid of at least one of her burdens.

At the base of the godmother statue, Moira set everything she held in her hand except for the wand down. She climbed up the base and tried to stick the wand into the statue’s hand.

It wouldn’t fit.

She tried the other godmother statue.

No such luck.

“Are you serious?!” Moira shouted. “All this way for nothing?!”

She glared at the godmother statue, and then sobered up. The statue was still headless. Maybe it wouldn’t hold anything until Moira restored its head. And wasn’t _that_ a disturbing thought?

Huffing angrily, Moira picked her burdens back up and began walking back to the sigil. At the cemetery, a pair of tombstones gave her pause. She _had_ walked past them before, but she’d probably never noticed they were missing their fronts. And the left tombstone had an indent that was identical to the hunk of stone she carried.

She didn’t want to put the tombstone back, but necessity overruled desire. The hunk of stone was awkward to carry under one arm, on top of carrying her other large items in her other hand. She pushed the tombstone back into its indent and continued walking to the sigil.

She stepped onto it carefully. Closed her eyes. Inhaled.

_No—no—bad idea!_

Moira staggered back into the workroom, gagging. She dropped her large items and sank to her knees, trying to get air back into her lungs.

Right. Make that two things to not do when teleporting: jumping and breathing. Well, inhaling.

When she was confident she wasn’t going to faint, Moira got to her feet and staggered over to the work table. The sigil was parked right in front of it. She took a deep breath and placed a foot outside of the pentagram but within the circle. Did the same with her other foot.

Nothing happened.

If she didn’t step onto the pentagram… she could search for her item in peace without the fear of accidentally teleporting herself.

Sometime later, she found what she was looking for: another wand. Stone, again, topped with a little rose. The end had a shiny red ribbon tied to it. Another large item to lug around in her hands. Great.

Perhaps it was time to revisit the room with the Fairy Godmother statues.


	10. Chapter IX

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. Um. I'm sorry for not updating? I needed a break, because doing this series requires that I play the game AND write longhand at the same time, and then I have to type everything into a word document! That gets a little tiring to do.
> 
> I also can't work for the time being... so I might as well post in the meantime.

The Godmother statue room was still breathtaking, but Moira had a job to do. Setting all the large items but the two wands down, she approached the dais and climbed up between the first two statues. From this height, she was two feet from the ground, and each of the statues were at least five feet tall each. Moira could easily touch the tip of the veiled hat belonging to one of the statues if she tried hard enough. Holding the wand with the elaborately curled topper, she tried placing it in the hand of the foremost Godmother.

The wand wouldn’t fit. It slid from the statue’s hand, and if it wasn’t for Moira’s intervention it easily could have dropped to the ground and shattered. It didn’t fit into the hand of the other wandless statue either. Which meant it belonged to the bell tower Godmother, who still needed her head.

With a tiny huff of frustration, Moira substituted the wand with the red ribbon one and placed that one into the first statue’s hand. It slid into place perfectly, and she was only mildly disappointed that a secret compartment didn’t open. She stepped down from the dais and stepped back to admire what she fixed.

The statues still looked disturbingly realistic. But with her wand restored, the foremost Godmother looked _alive_ , to the point Moira was briefly worried she was going to move and cast a spell. But nothing of the sort happened, and there was nothing to do here except gawking. She gathered up her large items, tucked the coil of sturdy rope around her shoulder and under her armpit, and backtracked to the three doors.

She hacked at the briars covering the first door with little difficulty, the thick thorns poking her shredded gloves as she threw the chopped vines aside. When she was finally finished, she wasn’t sure what made her scream in frustration louder: the machete breaking in her hand, or the marble puzzle blocking the doorway.

“ _SON OF A—!_ "

&

The hallway on the other side of the door was open and spacious, with only a few straggly thorny vines intruding on the vaulted ceiling. To Moira’s right was a wall comprised of thick brick pillars with large windows between them, which allowed for large amounts of natural light to brighten the place. To her left were two decorative marble busts of beautiful but unknown women.

Each bust had a small rosebush in their own stills planted in front of it, and a nameplate that Moira couldn’t read clearly without tools she didn’t have. The left bust drew her attention the most, with its stern yet wise expression, the lovingly sculpted features of the woman’s face… the broken and scattered pieces of an item strewn all over it. Moira clenched her teeth and tried to not groan.

The rosebush’s smell calmed her down somewhat as she searched. It wasn’t too heady or overpowering; just the right amount of delicateness to arouse her interest. The bronze alcove the bust was housed in had seen better days, with a large chunk broken off on the right side that exposed the stone wall beneath. Even the wall outside of it hadn’t been spared the damage, with some pieces chipped off a corner underneath an unlit hanging lamp.

When she finished searching, the broken pieces mended themselves into a doorknob. Made of solid gold, with a wooden handle meant for pulling its respective door open or pushing it open. The top had been carved with pretty, thick swirls that were topped with a crown. The only thing Moira cared about was that it was small enough to fit inside a pocket, and in there it went.

She turned her attention to the end of the hallway. A door had been open and left ajar, light spilling forth from within whatever the door hid. She walked up to the door and opened it all the way to get a better look inside.

This was a dead end. A dead end with entrances to two rooms. Two rooms that _might_ belong to the royal family, because the new door handle Moira just found wouldn’t come off the door she placed it on out of curiosity. The door wouldn’t open without its other handle, but she could find that later. This dead-end room was small and made smaller with the four pedestaled bronze statues flanking each door. Two large statues had their own little alcoves: a kissing couple set between the doors, and a woman staring at… something in rapture.

 _She probably looks like me when I see a gorgeous woman,_ Moira thought with a giggle.

Taking a deep breath to ward off any incoming claustrophobia, she focused her attention on the second door.

Another marble puzzle. The only challenging aspect was the amount of color marbles that had to be put on the correct tiles, and the way they’d get on them—but placing three of them wasn’t very hard at all. Moira soon had the door open and stepped inside.

&

A bedroom, of course. A little too sparsely decorated for a princess, and judging from the rose-colored decorations, Moira was willing to bet this room belonged to Briar Rose. The giant vase of roses she saw out of the corner of her eye seemed to prove matters.

A large four-poster bed that could have slept six comfortably dominated one corner, its pillows knocked askew and its coverlet hanging off the large mattress. A red rug covered a large portion of the stone floor in front of the glass-pane window. A small vanity with a plush rounded chair was situated in the middle of the room, and on that vanity was the other door handle Moira was looking for. As she moved to pick it up, she caught sight of a very strange thing indeed.

Tucked into a corner adjacent to the bed was a massive cabinet made of solid dark wood, carved with flowers. A brightly lit lamp shined on the giant, thick chains that looped around the cabinet multiple times, and it was all held together with a small padlock. Who would do such a thing? If this room truly belonged to Briar Rose, what secrets was she hiding?

She was either going to need a key or a massive bolt cutter to find out. But she had neither right now. Stepping over an overturned coat rack and a fallen… large article of clothing, probably a cloak, Moira exited the bedroom and stuck the new door handle on the remaining closed door. She pushed both doors open with a little effort and stepped inside.

Was this the king and queen’s bedchamber? Most likely. It was more crowded than the other bedchamber, with more furniture scattered around. Moira grabbed a burning torch strapped to one of the bedposts and held it out in front of her. Circling slowly, she cast new light on her new surroundings.

A large chest with a vase of roses, parked underneath a giant canvas painting that was more appropriate for an eighteenth-century estate than a dilapidated medieval castle. There was a large armchair placed beside another glass-pane window… and someone, or something, had broken a giant hole in the glass. Whatever or whoever it was, it left zero trace of its identity on either the broken window or the glass shards on the floor.

But any disappointment Moira had disappeared when she looked at the burning torch. The flames burned strong and hot, and she was in no position to question that or the glass-pane windows in a medieval castle. She grinned to herself and stalked from the bedchamber.

It was time to face the giant spider again, with the best weapon she had at her disposal.


	11. Chapter X

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a brief spoiler for Mystery Case Files: Return to Ravenhearst toward the end, but it's nothing too major.

As much as she wanted to make a beeline to the chapel and kill the spider, the hallway with the statue busts prevented her from going any farther. There was something broken, again, on the statue she’d just checked what felt like less than five minutes ago. The item was a stone harp, stringed with silver. It may look small when looking up at the arms of the angel statue, but down here in Moira’s hands it looked and felt huge. Her only recourse, upon being able to move freely again toward the castle rooftop, was to tuck it underneath her other arm.

Lugging around all these large items was making her hot and sweaty underneath her long coat, but she couldn’t take it off. How would she even carry it in the first place? She couldn’t tie it around her waist, the sheer length of the coat would weigh her down and drag behind her. Navigating the rooftop ladder with it around her would be sheer torture. Falling and breaking her neck or skull was the least of her worries there.

There was also the torch to contend with. The heat of the flames warmed the right side of her face as she walked down the hallway and out to the rooftop. Going down the ladder with it wasn’t as dangerous as freeing a robotic newborn from wires that she had to cut herself and time it _exactly_ to the switching colors of the newborn's eyes lest it explode in her face, but it certainly came close. At least she didn’t have to contend with the entire second floor of a house shaking with the force of the blast; all she had to worry about this time was _not_ setting herself or her hair on fire on the way down.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to take the torch down first. Looking down at the ground, tall grass grew from the ground around the altar and along the edge of the wall where the ladder was. An errant spark or flame from the torch against those, and she’d probably have a large fire on her hands. Moira stepped back and gradually set all the big items she’d been carrying down, sans torch.

She was going to have to approach this like the farmer, the wolf, the hen, and the sack of grain. Just with potentially breakable items and a potent source of heat instead. She swept her gaze along the wall, noting the small gaps along the edge. One of them looking perfect enough to angle the torch safely without risk of it falling. She could also balance the other items against them too…

&

This was the second trip down. Moira had decided to take the rope and Godmother wand down first and set them against the rose altar, because she didn’t need them immediately. Now she had the stone flute and harp in her arms but climbing down with them was proving to be slow and arduous. She’d be rid of them upon giving them to the nearby angels, but first she had to—

Her foot missed a ladder rung. Moira lost her balance briefly, and the harp slipped from under her armpit and fell to the ground.

“No! _Fuck!_ ” she shouted.

She struggled to regain her grip on the ladder and eventually settled herself safely, clutching the stone flute for dear life. She looked down cautiously over her shoulder, the flute digging into her scalp. Her scream had probably masked the sound of the harp breaking into pieces, but she hadn’t… heard a thing.

The harp lay undamaged on the stone path. It had fallen at least six feet or more, a height that would’ve left a significant chip or crack. Moira shimmied down the rest of the ladder, kept a tight grip on the flute, and bent down to investigate the harp for potential damage she couldn’t see presently. The lantern closest to the altar cast a weak shadow on the ground, and she couldn’t find any damage on the stone instrument no matter which way she turned it. She breathed a sigh of relief and stood up.

Walking up to the chapel door, she stood on her tip-toes and gave the angels their respective instruments back. To her left, she heard a scraping noise coming from the statue base. Moira bent down to look at it with a grunt of pain; there was that bloody “Find me!” sensation once more. She swiped a rose disc out from the compartment (it had a boot emblazoned on it this time, whatever _that_ meant) and stuck it in the least full pocket she currently possessed.

She had two choices now: go inside the chapel or go back up the ladder. It didn’t matter where; she clearly had something to find at both locations, and god forbid this realm let her forget about it for an instant.

&

She ended up taking the ladder. She didn’t want to leave the burning torch unattended, and she could kill two birds with one stone by bringing both it and whatever lay in the rooftop alcove down the ladder at the same time.

The pieces she began assembling in the rooftop alcove was disturbingly starting to look like a head. A stone head, nonetheless, but still a _head_! Her nervousness made it hard to think clearly, and it took a long time to eventually find all the pieces.

A friendly, grandmother-like face stared back at Moira when she finally finished. The entire sculpture included not only the head, but also the tops of her bared shoulders. The nose was overly aquiline, the smile was long and thin, but it possessed that eerie lifelike gaze that looked like it was going to start talking at any moment.

There was only one Godmother statue that didn’t have her head, which meant another trip to the bell tower.

The head was also too large to both bring it and the lit torch safely down the ladder. It wasn’t hollow on the inside, which made jamming her hand up into the head cavity and carrying it down that way wasn’t going to work. But then she thought about the harp that almost gave her a heart attack when it fell. If the harp could fall to the ground and not break, so could this head.

Moira cupped the head in her heads, quietly blessed the fact that it was light as a feather, and very carefully aimed for the grass. She gently tossed it into the air. The forehead clipped some small stone steps on its descent, but it landed where she wanted it to go. She grabbed the torch and climbed down the ladder slowly. The closer she got, the more light there was to see by, and she was correct: the head was completely unharmed.

She grabbed the rope and the stone Godmother wand and went inside the church. A doll head resting on a pew was her first clue as to what the next item she needed was, not to mention the toy sword sticking out of a nearby curtain. A Prince doll to match her Princess doll, hm? All she needed was a way to free the imprisoned horse in the stable, and she could finally pose all three in the music room.

But she wasn’t ready to go back up there just yet. There was a headless Godmother to restore first.

It took some rearranging of her filled pockets, but she managed to stick the Prince doll into one of them with a rose disc. She had contemplated stuffing the doll partway down her shirt and buttoning the coat to keep it relatively secure, but the raised toy sword sticking up was still a sword. Getting stabbed in the jaw every time she looked down wasn’t going to be very fun or ideal in the long run.

Walking outside, Moira grabbed the Godmother head and walked all the way back to the bell tower. She set her stuff down and reunited the head with its body. _Now_ the statue looked complete, and all she had to do was give her wand back…

…only for it to slip out again. Moira grabbed it before it fell into the grass and tried to not scream. There was something missing still, and she tried to think of what it might be _this_ time. The Godmothers in the castle had a mix of some with hats and some without. She gazed at the Godmother statue closest to the bell tower. It was wearing a hat, a very wide-brimmed one that wouldn’t look out of place in a witch’s wardrobe. Maybe that was what she needed.

Perhaps she’d find it after killing the spider. That still needed to be done, and she could get rid of the torch at the same time, though she hated to do it. A source of light might be useful for exploring deeper into the castle, assuming she needed to go in there in the first place. This realm was… _good_ at keeping her out of places she shouldn’t be going, that massive pile of rubble in the throne room being a great example, and all too happy to not give her the tools she needed to bypass that mess.

But first, the spider.

&

The storage area for potion ingredients was just as musty and damp as she remembered, with the giant spider watching her every move with its beady eyes. There was an item down here, she could feel it, but she needed to test something first.

She took a step forward. The spider wriggled on its web, but it made no attempt to leave it. Another step, and the same happened. She could probably walk up to pet it and it still wouldn’t leave the web. Her earlier panic was unfounded. The spider hadn’t left at all, and it wasn’t secretly stalking her through the castle.

Her grip tightened on the torch, but the ceaseless pressure behind her navel overrode her desire to kill. Item first, then arachnid homicide.

Keeping her eyes on the spider, Moira searched between the jars on the shelf again. Found bits of broken stone. She didn’t dare turn her back on the spider. It may not be able to leave its web when she approached, but that didn’t stop her from thinking that maybe it could _jump_ from it if it wanted to.

Finally, she had her item in her hands. A large stone witch hat, the very one she was looking for. She set it carefully to the side with the stone wand against a stack of bulging sacks. Now or never, it was time for the spider to die.

Fear made her first step forward hesitant. So many things could go wrong if she didn’t stab hard enough or in the right spot. It could lunge and knock her down and devour her. She could miss the spider entirely and set it web on fire, which would likely engulf the spider too but then the flames could spread to the rest of the room too. The walls and floor were _wood_ after all, and there was no ventilation. Any smoke would stay in here, and she’d choke and die.

She tried to change her thinking, made up a different scenario. This was almost like being back at the replica of Charles Dalimar’s house again, staring down at the animatronic of his obese mother. She had held a homely apple pie with a stick of dynamite in it, and she’d shoved it down the animatronic’s throat, and she’d had to run before she got caught in the resulting explosion—

A shout tore from her throat as she ran forward and stabbed the spider right in the middle of its body. It _screamed_ , flames spreading to the web and engulfing the corpse. Moira heaved and coughed, flailing backwards as her sleeve caught fire and she slapped at the flames with her bandaged fingers to make it stop. What surprised her the most was that there was very little smoke, and none of the flames were spreading; they were concentrated on the spider, its web, and the door they were caught on. When every inch of them had been consumed, there was nothing but an empty hole where the door had been. Beyond was another section to explore.

Moira could feel that slight tug, that feeling to go forward and get the item that lay beyond, but it wasn’t severe. She could backtrack back to the bell tower again, and the fresh air would clear her head and lungs.

With a final heaving cough, she grabbed the wand and hat and left.


	12. Chapter XI

Moira scrambled atop the statue base, one hand gripping the stone folds of the Godmother’s robes while her free hand tried to keep an even grip on the stone hat. Her knee banged against something as she finally managed to get on the statue base, and she bit back an urge to scream as she wobbled dangerously. The ground wasn’t _too_ far away, but she’d hate to have the hat hit her on the way down, feather light in her hands or not.

Sucking in a deep breath, she forced herself to stand up. Once she was certain she wasn’t going to bang her head and both feet were on solid footing, Moira reached up to put the hat back on the Godmother’s head and give her wand back.

She waited.

Nothing slid free, and then she heard the tell-tale scrapping noise of something on the statue being uncovered.

“Fucking _finally_!” Moira shouted.

She took a few minutes to stretch her sore shoulders and arms out, and then she scrambled off the base to see what was in the unveiled compartment. She expected another rose disc, but this… wasn’t it. A small stone wand was inside, its only decoration being a swirling embellishment of ivy going up the wand’s length. As Moira carefully stowed it away with one of the dolls, a name plate she hadn’t noticed before caught her eye. Squinting in the semi-darkness, she used her sleeve to rub off dirt and used her finger to trace the letters.

_Godmother of the Ivy._

The other statue had a similar name plate, only it read _Godmother of the Rose_. Neither statue sported their signature plants out here by the bell tower, unlike their counterparts in the castle… and there _was_ a statue in that room missing a wand, who _did_ have a plant growing at her feet.

&

Giving that statue her wand back was easy as pie. Moira stood back to admire her handiwork. All the statues had their wands now, ready to come alive and lob spells at trespassers or bless babies.

A moaning noise gave her a start, and she turned around to investigate. The stand that had the ominous message about Briar Rose’s curse had split its top part in two, and a rose disc winked at her in the candlelight. Moira picked it up and shoved it into a pocket at random without bothering to look at the image embossed on it. This was the seventh she found already! She hoped this was the last one, because there was only so much she could stuff in her pockets before their seams began breaking.

She left the shrine and found herself going back to the hallway leading to the royal family’s bedchambers. She didn’t try to resist; it was almost like selecting an arrowed path in a video game and having no choice _but_ to stay on it until it dropped you off at the end of a different area. When she finally came to a stop in front of the marble statue busts, a piece of jewel sticking to the forehead of the very first one was an easy hint as to what she had to restore next: a key.

Moira used her fingernail to gently pry the key piece off, and set it down on the bottom of the alcove the bust was housed in. The rest of the pieces were easy to find, but when she attempted to grab the parts on the flowers, they fell onto the soil.

“Damn it.”

She looked at her bandaged fingers. The last thing she wanted was for soil – or any other kind of dirt – to get into her still healing cuts. Her gloves were too shredded to cover them effectively if she took the bandages off. She started pushing aside random clumps of flowers, and eventually found the fallen pieces resting on top of the soil. It took every nerve she had to pick them up and not get a speck of dirt in or on her bandages – her fingernails were a decent length, but not long enough to simply hook the key parts on their own!

Once she had the key completely repaired, Moira walked back to Briar Rose’s bedroom. Stepping over the overturned cloak stand, she tried to unlock the chained cabinet. The key was too large for the keyhole, and she slipped it back into its designated pocket with a pang of disappointment. Either an actual key for the chains existed somewhere, or this realm was going to give her a free set of chain pliers as one of the next items to assemble.

Leaving the bedroom, Moira left the castle entirely to head back to the pond in the outer courtyard. She wasn’t entirely sure where to go to next and going back to the relative beginning and starting from there to look for (or get demanded to look for) items seemed like a good idea. But her thoughts on that matter stopped when she came to the well. Wells could be explored if they weren’t filled, right? She hadn’t taken that _route_ yet.

Picking up a pebble, Moira looked down into the well’s depths and dropped it. She anticipated a splashing noise, but the pebble dropped and dropped until she swore she heard it hit solid ground. She looked at the coil of the rope she found earlier. Was this long enough to let her see what was on the bottom…?

Only one way to find out.

&

 _This rope better fucking hold!_ Moira mentally snarled.

She tugged and rappelled herself down the last few feet to the bottom of the well, kicking off the wall to give herself more leverage. She only let go of the rope when she was certain both feet were on the ground. Her left shoulder ached from her initial descent; she’d almost fallen to her death scooting over the edge of the well and grabbed the rope instead of holding onto it in the first place like the absolute madwoman she was. That’s what she got for climbing down something without safety equipment.

The bottom of the well was surprisingly spacious, with a lit overhead lamp in an archway providing dim lighting to the circular space. Most of that light shined on a door that had no visible handles. Off to its right was a small inset with an empty golden vase attached to it. The sharp floral scent emitting from the vase overpowered any dank and moldy scents Moira usually associated with exploring an empty well.

A loud squeak interrupted her reverie, and Moira screeched as a rat crawled past her foot. Heart pounding, she fell back until she hit a wall and knocked something over. She gave a cautious side-glance, hoping to God it wasn’t a dead body—

“A fucking _broom_?! Who the shit drops of a BROOM down an empty well?”

The sheet absurdity of it made her burst out laughing, only to sober up upon realizing that one, this broom would be useful to have along, and two, she had no idea how she was going to bring it back up with her. Climbing down the well had been easy. Going back up it, clutching the broom in one hand? She wasn’t just courting death now, she was kissing it.

She looked at the rope. It draped along the stone floor like a snake, and she suddenly had an idea. She grabbed the broom and tied it to the end of the rope. All she had to do now was haul herself up, and then pull the rope out of the well to get the broom. She just hoped the well was wide enough for the broom to come up without getting stuck.

&

What felt like an eternity later, she had her answer.

“Just—a little—MORE!”

Moira tugged with all her might, and she finally heard the broom handle break away from whatever had caught it on the way up to her. She pulled it over the well edge and untied the rope, letting it fall back into the well. Judging from the empty vase down there, she was going to at least need a second trip down.

She wanted to go onward toward the stables, but her body demanded a rest. She sank down to the ground and put her back against the well, shrugging her coat off her arms and letting it crumple around her. Her arms and legs ached from going up and down the well, and Moira knew she had to be hungry and thirsty by now, but… she didn’t feel it. This felt like a fantastic question to ask the previous detective later, if she ever got out of here.

She wasn’t sure how long she sat there, occasionally stretching her sore muscles. It was so quiet her own breathing sounded loud, and a joint popping sounded like a firework being set off nearby. But she had to get up – who knew what the evil Godmother was doing at this moment? Her lack of physical appearances and meddling into her investigation was worrisome.

True, she’d read the case files of past investigators who had their local enemy attack only after they’d solved everything and put things back where they belonged, and that could very well happen here. That thought alone was enough to get her back on her feet and put her coat back on. She had to be ready for anything, even if she wasn’t sure her sore legs could handle stairs now.

One step forward. Another step. Her leg muscles protested, but this was the only way to help them. The closer she got to the stables, the more she could feel that _Find me!_ Sensation building around her. Once she got inside, she couldn’t physically leave the area no matter how hard she tried. Worse, the item she seemed to be assembling was in mostly black pieces. They blended in perfectly with the shadowy darkness of the stales despite the full moon’s light shining down through the roof windows.

When Moira _finally_ found all the pieces, she held a black container with its middle made of clear glass. The cylinder structure had a black rose suspended inside… somehow. She went outside and held it up to the lamp light. She turned the container upside down, and the rose didn’t move. She tried to look at the bottom where the rose stem was, but the lamp light was too weak to let her see. Oh well. She could figure out later.

She continued onto the church. No presence here, not even in the pews. When she went back downstairs though, she saw scattered pieces littered among the jars on the shelves.

“I was just here… what, an hour ago?” she commented as she picked up the pieces. “Ugh!”

At least looking at the jars on the shelves was entertaining, now that she wasn’t in any immediate danger from a giant spider. There were two or three jars of magic water, a jar that was labelled _piper fruci_ , and those were just the most visible ones.

Dimly, she became aware that she no longer had to look for broken pieces. She focused her attention on what she held in her hands.

Chain pliers.

Hadn’t she wished for a set of these earlier in Briar Rose’s bedroom? Moira raced back here, skidding to a halt in front of the cabinet and immediately getting to work snapping the links. It took all her strength to break them, and the chain was so long it took several snaps and pulls to remove it completely from the cabinet. She wasn’t surprised or angry when the pliers broke after the chains fell free; she’d put them through one hell of a workout.

But there was one more thing to take care of. A padlock still secured the doors of the cabinet, and it looked different from the one on the chains. Moira wasn’t even aware that one had existed until now, because the chains had initially obscured it. She fished out the key she tried earlier and stuck it into the lock. _Now_ it fit, and Moira tugged it off to wrench the doors open.

She expected a full wardrobe of clothes or other personal items inside. Instead, the cabinet was empty except for a scepter. Moira grabbed it, trying to remember where it might go. The Godmother statues had their wands, but there were also at least two statues of the deceased king and queen. One set of them was… south of the outer courtyard, with the pond. She knew where this went now; the queen’s statue down there _was_ missing something from her hand.

She left the castle and made the long walk down to the two statues. When she slid the scepter back into the queen’s hand, she heard a stone panel slide open somewhere behind her. Turning around, she discovered a hidden compartment open on the second set of stairs leading to the outer courtyard. Inside the compartment was a horse sign with a water motif. That jogged her memory a bit, and she pulled out the sign she had found in the castle dining room.

Two horse signs. A fire and water motif.

She’d seen these before – in the stables.

&

The steel bars holding the toy horse captive slid out of sight when Moira put the signs back in their proper places, just as she suspected would happen. The toy horse was unfortunately made of wood, which made close cuddling with it painful.

On her way back to the music room in the castle, Moira left the broom perched against the rose altar. No use carrying it around if she didn’t need it right away, and the horse was awkward enough to carry up the ladder without the added danger of holding the broom handle under her armpit and praying it didn’t catch on the ladder rungs!

Her footsteps echoed on the stairs up to the music room, and they softened when she stepped onto the rugs that were laid down. She approached the stage and withdrew the princess and prince dolls from her coat. First to be set down was the princess doll, then the prince, and finally his horse, just like the carved inscription instructed. All three dolls were posed in front of a large backdrop of a castle, and Moira could only wonder what kind of adventures Briar Rose had them go on when she played with them.

But… wasn’t she supposed to get a reward? She’d carried that princess doll for what felt like her entire investigation here. Moira rolled her eyes, halfway chastising herself for being spoiled, when she saw the key. It was attached to a cut-out cloud suspended from the stage by a piece of string.

She dragged one of the piano stools over and stood on it to grab the key. This was her reward then? A plain gold key? It could’ve been worse. She stepped off the stool and put the key in the closest pocket she could reach that wasn’t full of rose discs.

There was only one place left to go now: the room beyond the underground storage area.


	13. Chapter XII

It was a kitchen. A very small kitchen, probably for the castle servants.

A large fire still blazed underneath a rudimentary stove, where a large cauldron sat on top of a burner. To its left was a messy pile of chopped wood, and along the wall next to that were assorted pots, pans, dishes… and a sealed glass bottle that was empty except for a round black object.

But Moira didn’t have time to dwell on that. The stove demanded her attention, because there was an item to be found. What worried her, though, was that some of the item parts were directly in the fireplace’s flames itself.

She crouched down and extended a hand. She could imagine heat on her palm, but in reality (or as close to reality as this realm was) she felt nothing. She inched closer, enough that the flames could catch her sleeve on fire again. The flames licked her skin, but Moira felt nothing but a mild tickling sensation. Finally, she reached out and pulled the item piece from the embers and dropped it on the cold stone floor.

Again, she felt nothing.

Maybe the realm could distinguish when something was already on fire verses when Moira set something on fire. She wasn’t going to test that theory anytime soon though. Anne and Simon, the director of her former Supernatural unit, would lose all patience at her acting stupid.

Piece by piece, she realized what she was putting together. The piece she’d pulled from the fire had been ornamental stone, like the king’s tombstone she’d assembled earlier. What she had now very likely belonged to the queen.

She backtracked to the cemetery and pushed the tombstone back into its proper place next to the king’s grave. As she tried to decipher what the tombstone read, something heavy rose behind her. The moon’s light was now obscured by something rectangular casting its shadow over her. Moira turned around and gasped.

There had been a cement square at the foot of the king and queen’s graves that she hadn’t bothered to take a closer look at. Now with the graves restored, that square had risen and revealed itself the door to a secret underground passage. Moira opened the locked door with the gold key she found in the music room and went down the steps.

The narrow steps gradually widened into a passageway roughly cut from stone, but a gate prevented her from going further. It was rusted and had no keyhole, and Moira found out why when she looked at the ground. On the far left and far right of the gate were two magical projections shaped like a white rose and a black rose. She pulled out the glass cylinder containing the black rose. This _was_ the only logical place to put it, but Moira put it back in her pocket. Setting it down in its appropriate slot was inviting the evil Godmother to destroy it while Moira looked for the white rose.

Leaving the passageway, Moira went back to the castle and stopped in the alchemist’s room. When she’d been in the library outside of this room earlier, she couldn’t open half of the books she’d pulled off the shelves. That was if she could even get the books off the shelf in the first place. The alchemist’s room boasted its own bookshelf bulging with books, and plenty of notes strewn around the workshop. Maybe these contained the information she needed to learn more about Briar Rose’s curse and get to the bottom of it, assuming she was able to read any of the words.

She walked up to the desk on the right side of the room. An open book was perched on its own stand, notes already scrawled on one page.

A good place to start, hopefully.

&

It hadn’t been a good place to start. But the books on the bookcase could be taken off and read through. Not only had the curse been explained, but Moira knew how to counter it and wake Briar Rose. In theory. _If_ she followed the potion recipe she found to the letter.

At least she knew how the room full of Godmother statues came into play. They had contained Briar Rose’s curse, but the one thousand years they planned for was over. The curse was active again, and the Godmothers were no longer here to renew the spell… or find a prince for the princess, assuming one even existed in this realm and now. The evil Godmother was probably counting on the curse being active to… do something to Briar Rose.

She could worry about that later. Right now, she had a potion to make.

Setting the potion book down on the work table, Moira pored over the creation steps. The potion’s description implied that it would only work if the curse was active again, and something seemed… off about her work space.

The half-finished potion she’d been so worried about breathing in or breaking open earlier resembled the halfway point described in the directions of the book. Leaning in, Moira inhaled curiously. The pinkish liquid smelled sweetly of roses, exactly as the instructions stated. Furthermore, the rest of the ingredients were already assembled out and measured exactly.

All she had to do now was figure out where the original potion-maker stopped and continue where they left off, provided she could identify the ingredients and match them to the book’s instructions.

Some time later, Moira held up a large corked vial and wiped sweat from her brow. In the light provided by the energy core, the liquid inside looked sickly. But the light in the workstation showed the light rosy hue the book described. A large rose head rested on the bottom of the vial, giving the potion an oddly complimentary dark red bottom with translucent light pink liquid on top. She just hoped she brewed it correctly despite the book telling her so, and that it woke the princess up.

There was no way she could carry this inside of her coat’s pockets, or anywhere on her person. Even though this realm had proven time and again that nothing pertaining to her investigation would break, this item was simply too precious to risk carrying around.

The teleporter beneath her feet was looking like a more desirable option. Taking it, she’d be on the grounds in a flash instead of going down a ladder with one hand again. On the downside, she’d have to walk all the way back to the kitchen area she found… but was it really a bad thing? The potion would be safer that way.

Moira lifted her foot up and set it down on a sigil line. Did the same with her other foot. She closed her eyes and only opened them when she felt the night air breeze on her face.

Clutching the potion tightly, she made her way back to the kitchen.

&

Unbelievably, there was another broken item in and around the stove.

“So soon after I left? My god!”

Now that she’d tested the flames, Moira had no problem reaching into the very back of the fire to grab an item piece. It was rusted a ruddy red color, but that could have been caused by prolonged exposure to the flames.

The assembled item turned out to be a hammer. A rusted hammer head, a narrow block of splintered wood, and a small length of rope to hold it all together. Truly a fearsome weapon against the evil Godmother!

But Moira had other plans for it.

She smashed the glass bottle that had the unidentifiable black object in it. The hammer broke and faded away like she knew it would, and Moira sifted through the glass shards carefully to end up acquiring… another rose disc, embossed with a heart. Lovely.

She continued onto the next room. It was the bedchamber for a handful of servants, most likely. An old, threadbare rug graced the floor, with four beds taking up the most space in the small room. There was barely enough room for a chair and tiny vanity in one corner, a clothes chest in another corner, and a wooden, empty infant’s cradle to the left of the first bed. A uniform hung loosely off a hook on the wall.

What drew Moira’s attention the most was the obscene amount of dust and debris at the foot of one bed. She used the broom she found in the well to sweep up the worst of it and found another rose disc. A star was embossed on this one this time.

Moira laid that disc on the bed and took the other discs out of her pockets. She had eight of these discs total There had been eight slots on that altar, right…?

She quickly gathered up the rose discs and ran out of the room.

She could finally get that white rose!


	14. Chapter XIII

The altar puzzle looked simple enough. One slot had the image of a rose on it. Moira picked up the disc with the rose embossed on it and inserted it into the slot. The disc—somehow—didn’t fit perfectly. She pried it out and then noticed a white plaque beneath the imprisoned white rose.

_A symbol of power, I am worn on the most powerful ruler in this land._

Riddles. Lovely.

Moira dug through the stack of discs until she found the crown rose disc. When she stuck that into the open slot, she heard a clicking noise and a new slot opened on the altar. The plaque’s message blurred, then changed into another riddle.

_I am your best protection from undesired weather, be it rain or ray._

She wasn’t sure why anyone would find sunshine undesirable, but oh well. She stuck the umbrella disc in the slot.

&

Only one disc left.

_The White Rose, I will lead you to the sleeping princess._

Moira’s hand shook as she put the final disc into its slot. The top of the rose’s coffinlike prison slid off, and she grasped the white rose’s stem gently to pull it out. The flower’s pure floral scent filled her nose, and she sighed happily. If she could somehow bottle this scent and sell it, she’d be filthy rich and not have to do this line of work anymore.

But the rose served a higher purpose than being made into a perfume. Moira tucked the flower behind her ear and began trekking back to the secret passageway. She was a little sad her case was almost over. But at the same time, she got a little shot of adrenaline at the thought of finally confronting the evil Godmother—provided she showed up in person—and waking Briar Rose.

She stopped in front of the iron gate. Crouching down in front of the white rose’s magical projection, Moira took the white rose out of her hair and set it down. The projection… morphed. The image of the white rose changed into a glass vase to hold the flower, with a small circular mirror underneath the vase. When she placed the black rose, a similar effect happened, but the top of the glass cylinder faded away while the rest of the glass morphed into a vase and mirror that was identical to the white rose.

Godmother magic? Perhaps.

A set of stairs waited for her. Moira began her ascent, cradling the rose potion in her hands. As she climbed, the stone walls became less roughly hewn and more like the ones in the castle. It was almost as if this tower were part of the castle, but its primary entrance had been destroyed and a new, secret one had been dug out instead. It reminded her of the massive debris pile in the throne room covering what looked like a door. Had _that_ been the original entrance to this tower?

Finally, she reached the top of the staircase. There was no door to open or close. The tower room was small and bathed in moonlight shining through two enormous glass windows. Some sort of bird perched in the hollowed-out middle of the second window, a note of some sorts attached to its leg.

Briar Rose lay on a large bed that was curtained off with huge swaths of gauzy white fabric. Her long blonde hair was spread across the large pillow her head rested on. She was the very image of a storybook princess, and so lovely to look at that Moira’s heart almost couldn’t take it. She walked closer to the bed, enough to reach out and touch Briar Rose. Her bandaged fingers grazed the princess’s forehead, only to draw back in shock. Briar Rose’s skin was warm to the touch, and when Moira removed her glove and hovered her hand by Briar Rose’s nose, she could barely feel her breathe.

A cold breeze swept through the room, making Moira look up. The evil Godmother stood at the foot of the bed, obscured by the gauzy curtain.

Moira left Briar Rose’s side and went to the foot of the bed. She could _feel_ the dark magic this close to the evil Godmother, but… she faded in and out of view. This was the same image that attempted to taunt her when she first entered the castle grounds. Before her eyes, the evil Godmother once again faded in and out of view, only maintaining visibility for a few seconds before blinking out of sight, and then reappearing. The same cycle repeated itself three more times before Moira spoke.

“You’re just a specter, aren’t you?” she whispered to her. “Your real body is gone, and you’re just a hungry ghost looking for someone’s unconscious body to inhabit so you can continue whatever evil deeds you were committing before you died.”

As she spoke, Moira began inching back toward Briar Rose’s side. The evil Godmother flickered in and out of sight. When Moira uncorked the potion bottle, the Godmother manifested on the other side of the bed, too terrifyingly close for comfort. She reached out, but Moira was faster.

“BACK OFF, YOU _FUCKING BAWBAG_!”

She forced Briar Rose’s mouth open and poured the potion into her mouth.

“Impossible!” the evil Godmother shouted. She reached out to Briar Rose—

Moira flung the brick from the well at her. The rock went straight through the evil Godmother’s ghostly visage and hit the wall behind her. She screamed, and Moira felt remnants of black magic whip out at her chest. Flung backwards from the force of it, she stumbled and fell against the wall behind her. Dimly, she became aware of Briar Rose coughing wildly.

 _“This will not be the last time we meet!”_ she heard the evil Godmother scream in her head.

The evil presence departed. Moira coughed, trying to get air back into her lungs. Her bruised ribs ached but she ignored it. She then felt something move under her hand and let out a startled squeak as a thorny vine _moved_ on its own.

It wriggled back to Briar Rose.

The shock of seeing that finally enabled Moira to move. She stood up and grabbed a pillar for support, clamoring over to Briar Rose’s side. Her eyes were open, and she was breathing normally, remnants of the rose potion spilled around her mouth and onto the bedsheets. Her gaze focused on Moira.

“Thank you, Detective, for fully lifting this dreadful curse. My body is weak from centuries of slumber; I’ll rest here for just a bit more.”

Moira reached out and squeezed her hand.

“My name is Moira. I’ll help you out of here when you’re strong enough to walk,” she replied. “I’m sorry about dumping the potion down your throat, but I had to break your curse somehow.”

Briar Rose smiled thinly. Moira caressed her thumb over the top of the princess’s hand and used her free hand to brush stray strands of hair away from her face.

“When the curse resurfaced, it also awakened the spirit of the evil Godmother. She led you here to find my sleeping body; with it she could again materialize in human form,” Briar Rose explained. “You have done well, for now she is gone forever, along with the cursed vines. Your city is safe.”

Well. That… confirmed a lot of things. Though Moira wasn’t sure the evil Godmother was truly gone forever. The vines had also gone _back_ to Briar Rose. And how did she know the vines were ravaging Edinburgh?

“Ah, Briar Rose—”

Briar Rose took a deep breath. She spoke again, her tone strange and formal, as if she was remembering something and it needed to be said with all haste.

“However, another curse has awakened, one that will submerge our world in water. To stop it you must find the fabled Frog Prince, as he still lives among us to this day.”

Her arm twitched, and Moira let go of her hand. Slowly, her arm disappeared beneath the covers. When it emerged again, she was holding a flat, crown shaped object that looked like it could be inserted into a wall or door. Its colors were difficult to discern in the dim tower room, but Moira thought she saw reds and blues. Nonetheless, she took it and put it in her pocket. She now had several questions: which world was Briar Rose talking about? This realm, or Moira’s? What curse was she talking about, and how would be submerged in water?

But she sensed Briar Rose needed rest, and simply voiced the question that mattered the most.

“Briar Rose, do you know where I can find the Frog Prince?”

Briar Rose lifted a shaking arm and pointed at the bird in the window. Moira walked over to it. She gently pried the note attached to its leg off and opened it.

It was either a letter or a series of instructions. It was very old, yellowed with age and crumpled through years of handling and folding. The black ink was too faded for her to read here; she’d have to take it and the crown back to the agency for analysis.

She looked back. Briar Rose had fallen asleep again, but it wasn’t the unnatural sleep of before. She looked peaceful and content.

Moving her could wait—for a little while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All of the dialogue spoken by the evil Godmother and Briar Rose are directly from the game itself, as are the riddle descriptions at the beginning of the chapter. There was one more line of dialogue that Briar Rose said, but I left it out on purpose because I couldn't form Moira's reaction around it.
> 
> The actual fight against the evil Godmother in the game plays out way, WAY differently than portrayed here, but I tweaked it both to suit the story and to avoid having to laboriously explain the mechanics of the frantic matching puzzle that actually occurs in-game.
> 
> Because the only valid way to deal with an evil ghost is to throw rocks at it and call it a bawbag while force-feeding a princess a potion you crafted.


	15. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Most of the information covered here deals with the bonus game that unlocks after completing "Curse of Briar Rose". Since I own the standard edition of the game and not the collector's edition, I didn't have access to the bonus content... but you think that's going to stop me from writing about it? Nada.
> 
> The door at the bottom of the well is actually an Easter egg; completing the game on hard mode with a special item in your inventory will let you open the door and see character/level designs from the developers.

_Three months later_

“Ah, Miss Moira. Come in.”

Anne’s office was the same dusty, overflowing mess Moira remembered. She sat down in the only chair across from her boss’s desk and waited. She had known this meeting was coming since the day she got back from the fairy tale realm with Briar Rose in her arms; she just hadn’t known _when_. At least the agency had given her enough time to recover from two cracked ribs.

“Is this an evaluation?” Moira blurted out.

“Are you expecting one?” Anne replied blandly. She removed a stack of journals from her chair and sat down behind her desk. “The only thing I can critique is your journal about Briar Rose’s case. Did you forget you were supposed to write things down during your investigation, and not after?”

“I… forgot to bring a journal along with me,” Moira admitted. “What I submitted were my half-mad scribblings while in the hospital.”

Anne sighed. “It certainly explains a lot. Anyway, I called you in here to discuss the note and crown you submitted, as well as update you on Briar Rose’s case.”

Moira sat up a little straighter. “What information do you have?”

“The note was a series of clues. Our colleagues in Germany have been tracking the Frog Prince’s whereabouts for years, and while they were grateful to have… new, relatively speaking, information it didn’t pan out,” Anne explained. “The Frog Prince is elusive; he’ll pop up on the agency’s radar in the Black Forest and then disappear abruptly for years or even centuries. The crown Briar Rose gave you very likely belonged to him.”

“Where was the Frog Prince’s last definitive location in the Black Forest?” Moira asked.

Anne shook her head tiredly. “Our German colleagues don’t know. The last known records were accidentally destroyed in a fire years ago. All we can do at this point is wait and see if he’s sighted again.”

Moira nodded. She wasn’t going to ask about the specifics as to how the agency knew when a fairy tale character was acting up again; she probably wasn’t privileged enough for such information. She bit her upper lip and changed the topic. "You said you had more information about Briar Rose’s case? Where is she? I haven’t seen her since we came back here.”

“Briar Rose has completely recovered from her curse. She returned to the fairy tale realms while you were still in the hospital,” Anne replied. “I’m sorry Moira, but I have no knowledge of her current whereabouts. But that’s not the information I wanted to discuss. It does concern her, but not in a way you believe.”

Moira leaned forward. “What happened while I was in the hospital?”

“I sent other agents to the castle. With the vines gone, they had far more access than _you_ did, and they discovered a tomb inside the spindle room,” Anne began. She stood up and began walking around. “The body inside the tomb was that of a prince. According to records found, he was the younger brother of a Prince James who attempted to wake Briar Rose from her slumber in the traditional manner.”

“He kissed her. What happened to him?”

“Remember when I told you to not kiss Briar Rose awake, even though you desperately wanted to?” Anne remarked. “That unnamed prince became ill after kissing Briar Rose and died a short time later.”

Moira gasped. She was glad she heeded _that_ warning!

“The agents also uncovered the existence of a woman named Princess Ivy. No one in the agency knows of her existence, because genealogical records only list Briar Rose and her parents.” Anne finished. “So, alas, we don’t know if Ivy is a relative of Briar Rose or simply a friend of hers.”

“Princess Ivy could be her sister,” Moira countered. Anne shook her head.

“We would have to have definitive proof of that claim, whether it be from the princess herself or if we find new records from the fairy tale realms. Or, if a detective was sent on a case there and they _happened_ to encounter Princess Ivy.”

"Which _could_ happen! I just... I just have a hunch I'm right, somehow." Moira shot back. At Anne's disparaging look, she sobered her temper a bit and chanced topics. Anne's comment about agents being sent back to the castle jogged her memory on something. "Anne, during my investigation, I went down into a well and discovered a door that could only be opened if something was placed in the vase next to it, and I never found the key to it. Did any of those agents discover what was behind the door?"

Anne actually snorted with laughter.

"They did. All they found was a strange series of drawings and a frog statue. It had nothing to do with the investigation at large, so it was closed up and left alone."

“...Oh. I see," Moira said sheepishly.

Silence settled between the two women. Anne stopped pacing and sat back down at her desk. Moira rubbed her eyes tiredly. She was glad for this new information, truly, but a selfish part of her was upset at not being able to say goodbye to Briar Rose. Her only visitors while recovering were her brother and his children, and a few former colleagues.

Well, maybe not so former once the agent she’s covering returns to work.

“Miss Moira, did you like working on Briar Rose’s case?” Anne inquired, an almost uncanny echo of Moira’s thoughts.

“Well, no one tried to kill me. The only trouble I got into was with the teleportation devices, and those were harmless compared to what I dealt with in the Paranormal division,” Moira replied. “I _liked_ working on the case, but I know my place here is temporary.”

Anne’s lips quirked into a thin smile. “Time flows differently between our world and the fairy tale realms. You were barely gone before you returned with Briar Rose. There’s plenty of time to decide whether you want to stay or go back to the Paranormal division.”

“If you say so,” Moira replied. “For all we know, Detective Cara could be back by the time the next case crosses your desk.”

Anne’s smile grew wider.

“Oh, I wouldn’t count on that.”


End file.
